How common is it for other people of Polish origin to discover they are actually Jewish?

Isn't this one of the things that makes America a great country?

Yep, people are very mixed. I like it since the women are sexy.

Mixed with who?

There are many different combinations.

Oh, I know. You Americans consider an Irish-Hungarian couple as mixed.

Racist no just practical as in olden days women were considered property and were raped and traded/ sold all the time. I call this law "The Mutt Law"

Scarlet unless you are a practicing Jew I wouldn't worry too much about it. You are what you are. My wife is a practicing Jew, however , I am raising all of my children Roman Catholic. I respect my wife's beliefs as she does mine. The only difference between a Jew and a Christian is one more belief. We are all African anyway.

Well they are ethnic mixes...

So, you're a kohenet--Kaplan means "priest" or "bishop". By the way, the Matrilineal Jewishness thing wasn't recognized until 586 BC-70 AD. Read the studies by J.R. Wilheim and Nehemia Gordon.

It means priest, which would mean a descendent of Aharon, Moses' brother. That makes her not a Kohenet, since there's no female priesthood in Judaism, but rather a "Bat Cohen", which means the daughter of a priest. And there is no such thing as a "Bishop" in the Jewish religion.

You say matrilineal jewishness wasn't recognized till 586BC. That's a pretty long time ago. I think it's safe to say she's Jewish.

But Matrilineal Jewishness was recognized only by Ezra. And anyway, banot-Aharon HaKohen are called "kohenet" in the singular. To answer your question, by the way, plenty of "Poles" find out that they're Jewish through DNA or like John Kerry HaKohen found out that he's Jewish--granted that John Kerry is Austrian-Hungarian American, nonetheless.

This is very interesting. I can relate to your question and I have a similar story. I am a 37 yr old female, third generation Polish American. There has been a "rumor" in my family that my mother's family is Jewish. Recently, it has been discovered, yes....discovered that we are in fact Jewish by my mother's Great or Great Great Grandmother whose name was Kagan (or maybe spelled Kegan). I was told that it was often kept a very grave secret out of fear of persecution if you were Jewish hiding in Poland. It was never spoken of until recently. So, I can relate to your story. I also wondered what it meant to be a Polish Jew as well since I grew up not fully knowing my ancestry. Could my ancestors have been holocaust survivors? What were the lives of my female ancestors like and how may that have shaped who I am or am not today. I am not an Ashkenazi Jew, my maternal Aunt is a survivor of very aggressive, sudden onset breast cancer and was tested for the Ashkenazi gene as they are genetically predisposed to aggressive breast cancer. If your even think you might be Jewish, they doctors will test you for that just so that they can learn more to help Ashkenazi women. So your ancestry can help catch some health problems before they hit hard and help others as well.

I know some people have posted statements of disbelief wondering how does someone "discover" or not know of their ancestry.
I also hope this helps some people understand that this is not unusual and that wanting to know about where you came from does not mean you have identity issues or are "latching on" to an identity. Some people just find their own ancestry more interesting and enriching than others. Some don't.

You mean if you were a Jew hiding during WWII?


I wouldn't know but so tell me please if there is any specific Jewish gene? Otherwise your claim would quite foolish. How do you know that your great grandma or her offspring didn't willingly change her/his allegation and decide not to be Jewish and marry outside Jewish community?

She means that she's ethnically Jewish and/or that she's a Jew according to Jewish law. If she's happy to find that out then good for her. Why is it foolish in your eyes?

This is getting silly. So you want to claim Jewishness because you 'might' have 1/8 Jewish genes? Even that doesn't count if your line was not continually matriarchal.

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You seem unaware that approximately 3 million non Jewish Poles died during almost 6 years of Nazi rule. That too was a holocaust for all those innocent victims.


You don't think that your male ancestors had any role in shaping who you are today?


You might want to study your Polish roots. You might be surprised.

Your simplifying opinion on the issue.

It's not complicated.


Not distant ancestors. The holocaust was about 69 years ago. If your grandparents are alive just ask them.

But it is not as simple as you make out to be. Is there any specific Jewish gene?

There isn't one specific gene, there are many genes that are common in the Jewish gene pool. Since Jews (until the past hundred years) married among themselves for centuries there developed a gene pool that has characteristics, both good and bad. Just like any ethnic group that keeps separate from others. That's why there are some genetic diseases that are more common among Jews, and that's also why we get more Nobel prizes. It's all in the genes.

i don`t understand question. Ethnicity is ethnicity and religion is religion.

One can be Polish and in the same time exist as believer of Christianity, Buddhism, Judaism, Hinduism or Rodoverie, etc. One can be even atheist

That's right, you don't understand. Not every group of people defines identity the way you do. For Jews, ethnicity and religion overlap.
We are an ethnic group (tribe/nation/ people) that has its own religion.

alright, i respect your choice man. Actually, we Serbs also have sort of unique religious path in comparison to other Christians and Slavs. We are last Slavs who in its Christianized form celebrate old universal Slavic family custom that was (is) known as SLAVA. For us, Our Lord Jesus Christ and His beloved Mother goes hand in hand with cult of ancestors and Svetovid.

So, i understand your concept. Simplistically speaking, you Jews can`t comprehend your ethnicity without your God. We Serbians also can`t separate our ethnicity from SLAVA custom- from our spirituality. That`s why we incorporated our rodoverie in Christianity.

you must admit, this world is so fantastically diverse.

More like Mischling. Which is one grandparent.

You are only Mischling if you do not have an appearance of.

If I understand you correctly it is possible for someone to send a sample of DNA to a laboratory and they would be able to tell with 90% accuracy that that someone is Jewish or at least his genome is Jewish.

"How common is it for other people of Polish origin to discover they are actually Jewish?"

How common is it for other people of Jewish origin to discover they are actually Polish?

I found this link: igenea.com/en/jews

It works like this:
When you apply for an immigrant status you have to provide a document that shows your a Jew, whether by birth or converted. If a person is Jewish according to Jewish religious law but his spouse is not (and therefore his kids are not), they can also immigrate and become citizens. The idea behind that is sort of a negative of what the germans did: If you're someone the nazis would have killed, then we'll let you in.

I'm not aware of any DNA tests to prove Jewishness.

Would I be right in assuming that such a person would have to fufil his duties with the IDF?

Not necessarily. Take for example the American Jew Samuel Sheinbein who at the age of 17 murdered a love rival then fled to Israel and immediately gained citizenship in a cowardly attempt to avoid justice:

Copying and pasting more than 100 words is not permitted.

Source: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samuel_Sheinbein

I would like to think the IDF wouldn't want him anyway but you never know. It is safe to say though the he most certainly won't ever be getting a Nobel Prize in life.

The article you link to has not a word to say about IDF service, so we must conclude that you posted it solely because you wanted to post something about an 'evil Jew' and to attempt to make Israel look bad. Perhaps I should reply to your post by linking to a Pole who raped a child and then fled the USA (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polanski)? At least that would be on topic, given that the man is of Polish origin and of partly Jewish descent.

Your British cohort asked about IDF conscription as it pertains to immigrants to Israel. I cited a very relevant example of an age-eligible Jewish person who immigrated to Israel but who didn't serve in the IDF. Given that the Israeli government rubber-stamped his citizenship application and then went further to protect him by denying his extradition to the United States it could very well have turned out that this murderer could have gone on to don an IDF uniform for you to admire from afar. But it didn't turn out that way.

Now, do you care to tell us what the convicted French fugitive Raimund Liebling has to do with any of this?