Isaac of Troki

Who is Isaac of Troki?

Isaac ben Abraham of Troki, Karaite scholar and polemical writer or eight years earlier for both dates, according to Jacob Mann’s hypothesis. Since the formation of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth in 1569, still during Isaac ben Abraham's own lifetime, the city was also known in Polish as Troki).

Isaac's learning earned him the respect and deference of his fellow Karaites, and his knowledge of the Latin and Polish languages and of Christian dogmatics enabled him to engage in amicable conversations on religious subjects not only with Roman Catholic, Protestant, and Greek Orthodox clergymen, but also with Socinian and other sectarian elders. The fruit of these personal contacts, and of Isaac Troki’s concurrent extensive reading in the New Testament and the Christian theological and anti-Jewish literature, was his famous apology of Judaism entitled Hizzuk Emunah (Hebrew חזוק אמונה, "The Strenghtening of Faith"). Among his radical Christian sources, though Isaac considered them adversaries still, he made reference to the works of Byelorussian "Psilanthropist" Symon Budny who was excommunicated from the Unitarian community for opposing prayer to Christ and denying the virgin birth. Though he himself did not live to complete the Hizzuk Emunah, his pupil, Joseph Malinovski Troki, completed it by adding the preface and an index that was compiled from Isaac’s own written notes and oral remarks.