Was John Paul the Second Actually Jewish? Well...

Leave to thinking about that to someone at PolishForums.com. I had already heard that "Kacz" could be "Katz". Today, I (as far as I recall) got to thinking that maybe "Kacz-o-row-ski" may be "ה]בן [ה ]כ"צ ורב]". By breakdown:

1. "ה]בן]" is "ski" ("[the] son")
2. "ה ]כ"צ]" is "Kacz" ("[the] kohen tzedek")
3. "ורב" is explained by the fact that "rov" is "Rav" or "Rabbi" or "great" in Ashkenazi Hebrew and standard Yiddish. So, John Paul's maternal family may well have come from a rabbi who was a kohen, a great man, or both.

Incidentally, there may have been another Jewish Pope: Benedict XVI, who was apparently a descendant of Rabbi Judah Loew. By the way, I can safely say that I had taken Matthew 23:8-10 too far, although old habits die hard and I still feel guilty or unsure about using words like "rabbi" and "pope".