On the Ger Tzedek of Vilnius

By Yosef Vilner

This year the holiday of Shavuot occurred right after Shabbat. There were many meals and lively conversations around the table. During one these talks my daughter mentioned a story she read in a weekly supplement to the Hebrew edition of the Orthodox Jewish newspaper Hamodia. The story was about Polish nobleman Graf Potocki, a convert to Judaism who was convicted of apostacy by the Catholic Church and burned alive at the stake in Vilna on the second day of Shavuot on May 24, 1749. As a native of Vilna, I was very pleased to hear that this old, deeply rooted Litvak tradition is still celebrated on the pages of the contemporary Israeli magazines. However, the following day I discovered that Lithuanian Jewish Community in an apparent attempt to commemorate this event as a non-event published an article with a headline: “Ger Tzedek Count Potocki Story is Likely a Myth.” The article is derived from Wikipedia, where it appears under the title “Abraham ben Abraham.”

What prompted the editors of the website to compose such a headline? Most likely the following introductory passage in the Wikipedia article: “Although the Orthodox Jewish community accepts the teachings about Abraham ben Abraham, secular scholars have largely concluded that it is a legend.” But if the editors would take the trouble to continue reading the article they would probably arrive at a different conclusion. Setting aside the question of the reliability of Wikipedia as a source, let me present some of the conclusions of these “scholars” and examine them together with you.

As we read the article, we are informed that: “Historians who have studied the story of Potocki, believe it to be invented although it is unknown when or by whom. Jacek Moskwa points to a possibility that the author was Kraszewski himself, who is known to have invented some tales he claimed were true.” The reference here is to Joszef Ignacy Kraszewski, a well-known Polish writer and historian who published the story about Ger Tzedek from a Hebrew manuscript in his history of Vilna in 1841.

But to our great surprise in the next paragraph we discover that: “Polish historian Janusz Tazbir asserted that the story originated at the turn of the 19th century and was published in a Jewish periodical issued in London as “The Jewish Expositor and Friend of Israel” (vol. 8, 1822).” It does not take a mathematical genius to figure out that if the story appeared in print already in 1822 it could not be an invention of Kraszewski, who published it in 1841.

But what is this mysterious “Jewish periodical issued in London” called The Jewish Expositor and Friend of Israel? And what was exactly published there? A quick Google search produced the following results. “The Jewish Expositor and Friend of Israel” was a monthly periodical published by London Society for Promoting Christianity amongst the Jews, by no means a “Jewish periodical”. The abovementioned volume contains “Extracts from the Journal of Mr. Wolff”, who was a Jewish convert to Christianity and traveled as a missionary in Egypt and Eretz Israel between 1821 and 1826. According to the Jewish Encyclopedia from 1906 he “was the first modern missionary to preach to the Jews near Jerusalem.”  In the spring of 1822, he met with Rabbi Menachem Mendl of Shklov one of the leading rabbis in Jerusalem at the time. A neophyte Christian and a fervent missionary, Joseph Wolff initiated theological discussions with Rabbi Menachem Mendl in a disguised attempt to convert him to Christianity. Rabbi Rabbi Menachem Mendl, on the other hand, intended to bring Joseph Wolff back to the faith of his forefathers, the Judaism. It is the experts from these discussions that Joseph Wolff reported to “The Jewish Expositor and Friend of Israel”. April 14, 1822, Joseph Wolff wrote: “Rabbi Mendel mentioned to me the history of the conversion of a Polish Count, Podozky by name, he turned Jew, and was committed to the flames by the inquisition in Wilna.”

Rabbi Menachem Mendl was one of the outstanding disciples of the Vina Gaon, who immigrated to Eretz Israel in 1808 and settled in Jerusalem in 1816. Born in Shklov in 1750 he came to Vilna in 1795 to study with the Gaon. According to his own testimony: “I did not withdraw from his [the Gaon’s] presence; I held onto him and did not leave him; I remained in his tent day and night.” There is little doubt that he heard the story about the Ger Tzedek from the Rabbis of Vilna who were contemporaries to the trial and the execution of Avraham ben Avraham in 1749. This oral tradition Menachem Mendl related to Joseph Wolff in Jerusalem on the 14 April 1822.

As a result, the assertion of Janusz Tazbir  that the story about the Ger Tzedek “originated at the turn of the 19th century“ is not at all compelling. Moreover, if we scroll back to the beginning of the Wikipedia article, we will read the following passage:

There is also one contemporary written account from 1755, by Rabbi Yaakov Emden, Vayakam Edus b’Yaakov, 1755, p. 25b. A rough translation: A few years ago, it happened in Vilna the capital of Lithuania that a great prince from the family of Pototska converted. They captured him and imprisoned him for many days thinking they could return him to their religion. He knew that he would not escape harsh tortures and a cruel death if he would not return. They wanted to save him from the death and punishment that would await him if he held out. He paid no attention to them or to the begging of his mother the countess. He was not afraid or worried about dying in all the bitter anguish they had done to him. After waiting for him for a long time, they tried to take it easy on him for the honor of his family. He ridiculed all the temptations of the priests who would speak to him every day because he was an important minister. He scorned them and laughed at them, and chose death of long and cruel agony, to the temporary life of this world. He accepted and suffered all from love and died sanctifying God’s name. May he rest in peace.

Rabbi Yakov Emden, one of the prominent European Rabbis of the 18^th century, resided most of his life in Altona, now part of Hamburg, but maintained very close ties with the Jewish community of Vilna, were both of his parental grandparents were born. Known for his critical attitudes, he most certainly verified the credibility of the account before he published it in a book.

If incredulous Janusz Tazbir would be aware of this source, he would never have suggested “that the story originated at the turn of the 19th century.” But would he be convinced that it really happened in the first half of the previous century? Probably not, and this is because: “the tragic fate of Potocki, passed through Jewish oral tradition, remains unconfirmed by 18th-century Polish primary sources .” We must admit, in all fairness, that the lack of the evidence in the Polish sources poses a serious problem. But does it necessarily follow that the alleged event never happened? Or is it possible that the Polish archives of that period possess black holes that conceal certain events? One could speculate that due to the prominence of the Potocki magnate family, the conversion of one its members from Catholicism to Judaism and his subsequent execution was concealed from the public and later obliterated from the Church records.

As we progress with Tazbir’s arguments presented in the article we discover that: “the Polish nobility was guaranteed the freedom of faith and capital punishment was extremely rare.” But the author of the article is quick to note: “though see also Iwan Tyszkiewicz” and links to an entry in Wikipedia were we are told the following. Iwan Tyszkiewicz was well-to-do subject of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, who became a follower of Socinian doctrines and abandoned Roman Catholicism for a Unitarian sect and was burned alive for blasphemous heresy at the great marketplace of Warsaw in 1611. So much for religious freedom of faith. The second point attributed to Tazbir in above citation “and capital punishment was extremely rare” is even more incredible. How does it exactly invalidate the Jewish tradition that one Ger Tzedek was executed in 1749? Furthermore, according to Magda Teter (The Legend of Ger Zedek of Wilno as Polemic and Reassurance, AJS Review 29:2, 2005) in the span of five-year period from 1748 to 1753, another two such executions occurred in Poland. Abram Michelevich, a Jew from Mohilev, and his Christian partner, Paraska Danilowna, were executed in Mohilev in 1748, Abraham for proselytizing and Paraska for apostasy. And on June 2, 1753, Rafal Sentimani was burned alive for having converted from Catholicism to Judaism on the outskirts of Vilna. By no means it could be called an extreme rarity by the standards of the mid-eighteenth century.

Professor Shaul Stampfer of Hebrew University once commented that it is much easier for a historian to prove what something did happen then to prove that something did not happen. Indeed, to paraphrase the famous motto of Leopold von Ronke, to show wie es eigentlich nicht gewesen ist is extremely difficult. Some of the arguments against the historicity of the Jewish tradition about Count Valentin Potocki presented in the Wikipedia article are false, some are dubious, and others are not compelling. The deafening silence of the Polish sources from the 18^th century could possibly be explained; the Jewish record from 1755 cannot possibly be ignored. Is it legitimate because of this piece of scholarship to conclude that: “Ger Tzedek Count Potocki Story is Likely a Myth”?

If gerbiami journalists from Lithuanian Jewish Community could go back in time for some eighty-five years and then continue for another ten minutes from their fortified headquarters on Pylimo street to attend the morning service at the Great Synagogue of Vilna on the second day of Shavuot, they would hear a special prayer recited in honor of Avraham ben Avraham, the Ger Tzedek. A prayer that is already mentioned by Samuel Joseph Fuenn in his Kiryah ne’emanah ,1860, p.125. And its recital on the second day of Shavuot in the Great Synagogue is attested to by Chaykl Lunski in Mehagito Havilnai, 1921, p.56.

If they would visit the old Jewish cemetery in Shnipishok, they would see a place where the ashes Ger Tzedek were interred. The grave “had an iron shed built over it, with a Hebrew inscription, enclosed with large blocks of stone joined by heavy iron rails” (Israel Cohen, Vilna 1943, p. 74).

If they would visit the old cemetery on the 9^th of Av or on the eve of the High Holidays, they would most likely encounter numerous visitors praying by the grave of the Ger Tzedek. Would they still have courage to say that “Ger Tzedek Count Potocki Story is Likely a Myth”, and the Jews of Vina are paying respect to the product of their own imagination?

The Great Synagogue of Vina was demolished, and the old Jewish cemetery was razed to the ground by the Lithuanian Soviet regime. Most of the worshipers who offered a special prayer in honor of Ger Tzedek on the day of his martyrdom or prayed by his grave themselves became martyrs during the Holocaust. But the story about noble life and tragic death of Count Potocki is still retold by the traditional Jewish periodicals around the time of Shavuot with great admiration and respect. Would it not be more appropriate for the official website of the Lithuanian Jewish Community to honor its glorious past and to do the same instead of calling it “likely a myth”?

Acknowledgment

My understanding of this topic was informed by a lecture of Professor Shnayer Leiman “The Ger Tzedek of Vilna: Fact or Fiction”, available on yutorah.org.