Any other "lost jews" out there?

[Taverner]

I was raised Protestant, and my mother Catholic...however on her side the ethnicity is Jewish. From family records, we can tell that her family converted in the late 1800's in Poland. Efforts were made to hide the Jewish ancestry, but they weren't the strongest of efforts as the surnames weren't changed any (Levner, Jekiel, etc...) and even the language traditions were kept (my grandmother and grandfather both spoke fluent Yiddish "for business reasons.")

I never knew of my Jewish ancestry until recently, and have been doing as much as I can to learn about this culture that is at the same time foreign and familiar (kind of hard to explain.) My mom is still somewhat in denial about it, but has become more and more accepting of it.

Am I the only one out there?

[CanuckAmok]

1. They're always in the last place you look.

[Fenris]

2. Lost Jews? They should consider using a map!

[asthmaticeog]

4. Please, no - we have enough tsorres with the ones we've got.

Oy vey itz mir.

[fizzgig]

5. well

we did wander in the desert for 40 years

[Fenris]

6. Moses should have asked for directions!

Either that or the Lord should have sent down some burning freeway signs.

[Taverner]

7. You'd think "the land of milk and honey" would have been easy to find

Look for the spot on the coast...the one with no oil...yeah right there!

[SlavesandBulldozers]

9. hahaha

god you're funny!

[fizzgig]

3. i'm not really 'lost'

but i was not raised in a particularly jewish household...although i make a mean matzoh ball soup

i know a bit of what you are going through, trying to learn about your heritage

let me know if i can help you in any way

[Taverner]

8. Those were the dead giveaways in my family

Mom would make Potato Latkes with our Gwumpki...and most other Poles I'd talk to would start to wonder.

Also the lack of blonde hair and blue eyes was kind of a dead giveaway too...

[Call Me Wesley]

10. Seraphic descendant here.

[SOteric]

11. Unless

you're claiming to be descended of Angels, you probably mean 'Sephardic.'

[crispini]

12. Bwahahahahahaha!

[Call Me Wesley]

13. I won't deny anything,

but yes, in honor of my typos ... Thanks!

[Celeborn Skywalker]

14. We have many descendants of Sephardic Jews

here in New Mexico. Many are outwardly Catholic but secretly practice Judaism. They are descended from Jews who fled to New Mexico to flee the Spanish Inquisition.

[DrDebug]

15. Partially. Jewish father so it doesn't really count

But he never mentioned it during his life time. The funny thing is that it was pretty clear especially with the surname(s), but the family changed to Christianity in the 18th century after leaving Poland for Germany and it turned out to be pretty common to "change" religion after settling in a new place especially if the family was never that religious to being with.

The funny thing is that Yiddish kept being spoken as well and marriages were with other Jewish or former Jewish families. It is pretty normal, so you are not alone and a large percentage of Jews is "lost".

[Left Is Write]

16. Not here, but I find your story interesting...

If I were you, I'd be interested in digging more into the past.

I'm pretty sure my ancestors were Lutheran since about 15 minutes after Luther posted his 95 theses.

[5thGenDemocrat]

17. Kind of

My great-grandfather's family (Elias) converted to Catholicism somewhere around 1870, when Bismarck's 'Kulturkampf' was in bloom (he lived in Nicolai, Upper Silesia -- now Mikolow, Poland). His daughter, my grandma, refused to admit we were of Jewish ancestry until she was well into her 80s (but she wasn't fooling anybody). Still, since it was my mother's mother's father who converted, I don't think I'd qualify as Jewish, anyhow.
John
Still, I'm pretty good at getting stuff for wholesale.

[DrDebug]

20. It depends if your great-grandmother was Jewish then you are Jewish

That's why I am technically not Jewish even though the paternal side is 100% Jewish. The only thing which matters is the maternal line. By the looks of things it appears that you are Jewish regardless of your personal view. It seems to be related to the X chromosome since that is always passed in the maternal line and sometimes passed in the paternal line (50% odds).

[5thGenDemocrat]

21. Nope. Great-grandma's maiden name was 'von Gemula'

She was Catholic by birth and also from near Nicolai, but the two didn't meet each other until they, independently, had emigrated to Jackson, Michigan, circa 1885. They had something like fourteen kids together, several of whom died young.
John
G'grandpa was a jeweler and watchmaker by trade. He also served on the Bay City (MI) city council for many years, a staunch Democrat.

[Javaman]

18. Same here...

My sister just got her DNA thingy done to see if she has the breast cancer gene, thankfully, she doesn't but what she did find out was that our family has (pardon the spelling)Askanasi Jew in it. Who knew?

Kinda explains why my family uses Yiddish expressions along with our Italian expressions to express our emotions.

Mozzeltov (pardon the spelling once again)

[Indy_Dem_Defender]

19. Alot of people just

like you and don't even know it. there's some jewish ancestry way back in my family, I've heard family members say that they are jews in conversation before but never investgated it. My stepfather's jewish, his mother married a non-jew and I know her family disowned her because of that. For anyone who would know did that happen often back in late 1940's?

[Taverner]

22. True...many Latinos have Jewish ancestry

Many came here to escape the inquisition, which was winding down around 1492...