Abraham ben Abraham

Church|Catholicism]] and had become an observant Jew. According to Jewish oral traditions, he was known to the revered Talmudic sage, the Vilna Gaon (Rabbi Elijah Ben Shlomo Zalman [1720–1797]), and his ashes were interred in the relocated grave of the Vilna Gaon in Vilna's new Jewish cemetery. Some historians who have studied his story have stated that surprisingly little evidence of Potocki's existence has yet been discovered other than several 19th-century sources citing earlier oral histories, and they therefore consider that he most likely did not exist.

There are several versions of this story, especially among the Jews of Lithuania, Poland, and Russia, who know and still refer to Potocki as the Ger Tzedek ("righteous proselyte") of Vilna (Vilnius). Virtually all Jewish sources agree that he was a Polish nobleman who converted to Judaism and was burned at the stake by the Roman Catholic Church at Vilnius on May 23, 1749 (7 Sivan 5509, corresponding to the second day of the Jewish holiday of Shavuot in the Diaspora) because he had renounced Catholicism and had become an observant Jew.

Multiple oral histories, backed up by several 19th-century and later printed versions of the story, from many Jewish communities over the past 250 years, serve as evidence of Potocki's story. Jewish oral traditions teach some most interesting details as well as the outcome of Avraham ben Avraham's life and death.

Polish author Józef Ignacy Kraszewski, who is acknowledged as the oldest verified source citing this story, relates that young Potocki and his friend Zaremba, who traveled from Poland to study in a seminary in Paris, became interested in an old Jew whom they found poring over a large volume when they entered his wine shop. This Jew might have been their own countryman, Menahem Man ben Aryeh Löb of Visun, who was tortured and executed in Vilna at the age of seventy (July 3, 1749). Tradition has brought this Jewish martyr into close connection with the Ger Tzedek, but fear of the censor has prevented writers in Russia from saying anything explicit on the subject. His teachings and explanations of the Old Testament, to which they, as Roman Catholics, were total strangers, so impressed them that they prevailed upon him to instruct them in the Hebrew language. In six months they acquired proficiency in the Biblical language and a strong inclination toward Judaism. They resolved to go to Amsterdam, which was one of the few places in Europe at that time where a Christian could openly embrace Judaism. But Potocki first went to Rome, whence, after convincing himself that he could no longer remain a Catholic, he went to Amsterdam and took upon himself the covenant of Abraham, assuming the name of Avraham ben Avraham ("Abraham the son of Abraham"; "the son of Abraham" is the traditional styling of a convert to Judaism).

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