Genealogy /
Last name Confusion "Judah" [13]
If Jews changed their names, this is not because they converted to Catholicism.
not true. Some Jewish people who converted to Catholic religion changed their names to Polish names often representing the time of their conversion eg. Kwiecien, marzec and so on. It looks like OP's family kept the original name (if not original then Jewish for sure). It is possible that the name Judah is not the original one, but sounds generic to me, but I guess there is no way to find out. Many Jewish people were converting to Catholic religion either due to social pressure, or the will to assimilate, but most likely it was the catholic pressure for sure. For some reason your family didn't change the name to a more Polish sounding one, so maybe they converted because it was purely their choice. Who knows?
They might have taken the name Judah as a marker of them having Jewish roots.
As for looks, well, there is no defined Jewish look as far as I know since many generation of Jews lived and mixed with other nationalities. The only way to find out is to have a DNA test, but even then you might fall into some ethnic groups.
An interesting story though:)
