Just curious...

I just started watching this show after having been greatly disappointed by the newer Dragnet... I gotta say, I kinda really like it! Figured I'd like a show with 9 episodes... The cast was pretty decent, storylines were pretty good (let's face it.....L & O has pretty much covered every possible crime in NYC at least twice! Lol) I did have one ?... was Kojak (the character) Polish? If so, might it have been better to have had Ving's character adopted by a Polish family? Or Czech or whatever... Just seems there should be some back story there. Thoughts??