Abraham ben Abraham
Polish nobleman
Abraham ben Abraham (Hebrew: אַבְרָהָם בֶּן אַבְרָהָם, lit. 'Abraham, son of Abraham') (c. 1700 – 23 May 1749), also known as Count Valentine (Valentin, Walentyn) Potocki (Pototzki or Pototski), was a Polish nobleman (szlachta) of the Potocki family who converted to Judaism and was burned at the stake by the Roman Catholic Church for apostasy. 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. Although the Orthodox Jewish community accepts the teachings about Abraham ben Abraham, including the involvement of the Vilna Gaon, secular scholars have so far concluded the story is apocryphal.
Jewish traditions
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 23 May 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.
There is also one contemporary written account from 1755, by Rabbi Yaakov Emden. ויקם עדות ביעקב דף כה, ב (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.
The public source identifies “Abraham ben Abraham” as polish nobleman. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Abraham, Polish and nobleman.
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The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 11, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q2390246. VIAF identifies the subject as 4060153126235424750004. The Library of Congress control number is n88623952. 3 of 4 selected statements include explicit references; 1 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1700, 1749, 1720 and 1797.
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This entry incorporates text from “Abraham ben Abraham” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.