Noble Soul: The Life & Legend of the Vilna Ger Tzedek Count Walenty Potocki

Walenty Potocki was a young Polish nobleman who abandoned wealth, power, and unlimited worldly prospects to convert to new religion - Judaism. Potocki was betrayed by a member of the religious community he embraced and burned at the stake by the Church he left behind in 1749. This book examines eleven versions of this remarkable man's story and the heated, previously unpublished, correspondence between the Potocki clan and one of his early biographers. Noble Soul is the record of one man's defining faith, and of the compelling human need for personal spiritual fulfillment.

Contenu

• Returning to the Scene of the Crime: Ponary 1749, 1941
• To the Manor Born
• First Response: Józef Ignacy Kraszewski, 1841
• Early Data and Documents
• American Tribute: Henry Gersoni, 1873
• Jewish Souls: A. Litvin, 1916
• Alter Egos: Kaczyne's 'Der Dukus', 1925
• Fantasy in Berlin: Selig Schachnowitz, 1930
• Zionist Perspective: Ben-David, 1938
• Historical Novelty: Saul Saphire, 1942
• A Question of Parentage: Natan Mark, 1968
• Portraits of Piety: Yedael Meltzer, 1996
• Pardons and Potentates: Benedict xiv & Augustus iii
• Literary Lens: The Book of Esther
• Literary Lens: Redeemers and Relics in Christian Europe
• Conclusions
• Appendix Conversion to Judaism: The Eighteenth Century & Beyond