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"Paradisus Judaeorum" (Latin: Jewish paradise) is a Latin phrase which became one of four components of a 19th-century Polish-language proverb that described the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth (1569–1795) as "heaven for the nobility, purgatory for townspeople, hell for peasants, paradise for Jews."

The proverb's earliest attestation is an anonymous 1606 Latin pasquinade that begins, "Regnum Polonorum est" ("The Kingdom of Poland is"). Stanisław Kot surmised that its author may have been a Catholic townsman, perhaps a cleric, who criticized what he regarded as defects of the realm; the pasquinade excoriates virtually every group and class of society.

The phrase "Paradisus Iudaeorum" appears as the epigram to a gallery at Warsaw's POLIN Museum of the History of Polish Jews that ends in a "Corridor of Fire symbolis the Khmelnytsky Uprising" (1648-1657). Mikołaj Gliński writes that Jews consider the latter event "the biggest national catastrophe since the destruction of Solomon's Temple."

Some authors have read the phrase "Paradisus Iudaeorum" as a comment on the favorable situation of Jews in the Kingdom of Poland (and subsequently in the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth), a polity that was notable for granting Jews special privileges in the 1264 Statute of Kalisz while Jews faced persecution and murder in western Europe. Others have read the phrase as antisemitic – as suggesting that the Jews of the Polish Kingdom and Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth were overprivileged. Most present-day usage relates to the first interpretation.

History of versions

While the saying has sometimes been attributed to the 16th-century Polish rabbi Moses Isserles, the Polish literary historian Stanisław Kot provided the earliest printed attestation of part of the saying — "Heaven for the nobles, purgatory for townspeople, hell for peasants, and paradise for Jews" — in an anonymous 1606 Latin text, one of two that are jointly known by the Polish title, Paskwiliusze na królewskim weselu podrzucone ("Pasquinades Planted at Royal Wedding Celebration"), referring to the wedding of Sigismund III Vasa and Constance of Austria that had taken place on 11 December 1605.

Of the two texts attributed to the same anonymous author, the part that became the proverb appeared in the "Regnum Polonorum est" ("The Kingdom of Poland Is"). Parts of the text were quoted in Bishop Stanisław Zremba's 1623 work, "Okulary na rozchody w Koronie..." and were included in a 1636 work by Szymon Starowolski. The phrase, "heaven for the nobility", which became a regular part of the proverb, was added by the German Jesuit priest Michael Radau in his 1672 work, Orator extemporeneus; Polish-literature scholar Julian Krzyżanowski suggests that Radau had coined this phrase as early as 1641.

Several variants of the 1606 pasquinade appeared in shorter Latin versions, by the Croat Juraj Križanić (1664), the Italian Giovan Battista Pacichelli (1685), and the Slovak Daniel Krman [sk] (1708-9).

Kot thinks that the anonymous author of the 1606 pasquinade may have been inspired by examples of proverbs from other European countries. Sixteenth-century England was depicted as "the paradise of women, the hell of horses, and the purgatory of servants". Variants of this described France and Italy.

The first translation of the 1606 Polish pasquinade from Latin into Polish appeared in the 1630s. Kot translated it in 1937.

Pasquinade

The identity of the author is unknown. Kot wrote that he may have been a Catholic townsman, perhaps a priest jealous of the influence of Jews and others, such as Protestants and nobility, who competed with Catholic townspeople. Konrad Matyjaszek describes it as "expressing anti-gentry and anti-Jewish sentiments". According to Barbara Kirshenblatt-Gimblett, it was political satire,

"a pasquinade critical of everything in the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth—foreigners, immigrants, 'heretics,' peasants, burghers, and servants, and also Jews."

Kot writes that other versions in the 17th and 18th centuries criticized the clergy, Gypsies, Italians, Germans, Armenians, and Scots: groups were added or removed from the list, depending on the authors' allegiances.

Krzyżanowski sees the 1606 text as a satire on all of Polish society. Some 17th- and 18th-century Polish authors, themselves either nobles or clients of the nobility, saw it as an attack on the nobility's Golden Freedoms and ascribed it to a foreign author, refusing to accept that a scathing criticism of Polish society could come from a Polish author. Kot writes that the pasquinades are some of the most pointed examples of self-criticism originating in Polish society and that the nobility's refusal to accept that such criticism could come from within that society reflects sadly on the deterioration of Polish discourse in the 18th and 19th centuries.

Proverb

Over time, the 1606 pasquinade lapsed into obscurity, reduced to the popular proverb, that described the historical Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth (1569–1795) as "heaven for the nobility, purgatory for townspeople, hell for peasants, paradise for Jews." The proverb contrasts the disparate situations of four social classes in the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth. The privileged nobility (szlachta) is at the top ("heaven for the nobility"), and the impoverished, usually enserfed peasantry are at the bottom ("hell for peasants"). The other two commonly named classes are the townspeople (or burghers) and the Jews. By the 16th century, the position of townspeople in the Commonwealth had been in decline (hence, "purgatory for townspeople"). The situation of the Commonwealth's Jews, while similar to that of the townspeople, was fairly secure and prosperous, particularly compared to the situation of Jews in most other European countries. Due to its criticism of the nobility, the proverb was most popular among townspeople; much less so among the nobility, whose writers, if they referred to it, used it mainly in the context of Polish Jewry. The proverb has been described as still (as of 2004) very popular in Poland, and as often influencing people's views about the situation of the social classes, particularly the Jews, in the Commonwealth.

In various versions of the proverb, phrases appear in varying order and sometimes do not appear at all; there are also some minor changes in wording. Križanić, for example, writes "paradisus Hebraeorum" ("paradise for Hebrews") rather than "paradise for Jews". A five-part proverb variant appears in a treatise, Palatinum Reginae Liberatis (c. 1670), by the Polish Jesuit Walenty Pęski [pl], who omits mention of the townspeople, instead adding "purgatory for royalty" and "limbo for clergy". Another five-part 1861 German variant ("Polen ist der Bauern Hölle, der Juden Paradies, der Burger Fegefeuer, der Edelleute Himmel, und der Fremden Goldgrube" – "Poland is hell for peasants, paradise for Jews, purgatory for townspeople, heaven for the nobility, and goldmine for foreigners") includes the 1606 pasquinade's "goldmine for foreigners", which did not make it into the final modern proverb that lists the nobility, townspeople, peasants, and Jews. Samuel Adalberg's 1887 paremiology records a four-part version ("Polska niebem dla szlachty, czyśćcem dla mieszczan, piekłem dla chłopów, a rajem dla Żydów" – "Poland is heaven for the nobility, purgatory for townspeople, hell for peasants, and paradise for Jews") that is closest to the 1606 original, which latter differs only in the order of the phrases and in not including "heaven for the nobility".

Paradisus Judaeorum

The origin of the phrase "paradisus Judaeorum" ("paradise of the Jews") has been described as antisemitic, and the 1606 pasquinade's author as having viewed Poland as being run by overprivileged Jews. In the centuries since, the phrase has lost its negative connotations and has been used to refer to the golden age of Jewish life in Poland. For example, John Klier titled a chapter in his book about Eastern European Jewish history "Poland–Lithuania: 'Paradise for Jews'", and Gershon Hundert writes:

"The Polish Jewish community was vibrant, creative, proud and self-confident . Their neighbours knew this as well, referring to Poland as Paradisus Judaeorum . The full expression went: 'Poland is heaven for the nobility, hell for the peasants and paradise for Jews'."

The process of transformation of this phrase from antisemitic to philosemitic has been described by Piotr Konieczny as an example of linguistic reclamation.

The comparison of Jewish and noble classes has generally been described as exaggerated (Hundert himself writes that it was hyperbole), as the Jewish situation in early modern Poland, while comparatively privileged compared to many other classes in the Commonwealth, and to the Jewish position in many other contemporary countries, was hardly idyllic. Norman Davies says Jews "were widely denounced as the chosen instrument of 'the Polish lords'" in Ukraine.

In the POLIN Museum of the History of Polish Jews that opened in Warsaw in 2013, a gallery covering the "Golden Age of Polish Jewry" was named, "Paradisus Iudaeorum". The gallery's name became a subject of discussion when in 2016 Joanna Tokarska-Bakir argued that its use for the gallery was disrespectful. Barbara Kirshenblatt-Gimblett, Program Director of the Core Exhibition of the POLIN Museum, says that the intention is to engage the reader in a complex debate going beyond a binary black-and-white oversimplification. In 2017 Kamil Kijek wrote that, out of context, the phrase can indeed be confusing, but within a broader context it is representative of a much more complex, nuanced relationship between Jews and non-Jewish Poles.

Latin texts

Notes

1. Julian Krzyżanowski (1958): "Polska była niebem dla szlachty, czyścem dla mieszczan, piekłem dla chłopów, a rajem dla Żydów."
2. ^ Antony Polonsky (Studia Litteraria et Historica, 2017): "The initial part of this gallery features a set of quotations that show that it was not a Paradisus Judaeorum, that this was a mere slogan ... Konrad Matyjaszek: "The content of the 17th century text which the notion Paradisus is taken from is not problematized there. It is not explained that the text is antisemitic."

   "The term Paradisus Judaeorum has been present in Polish culture since the 17th century. It comes from an anonymous text expressing anti-gentry and anti-Jewish sentiments, which was published in Latin in 1606 and titled Paskwiliusze na królewskim weselu podrzucone . The anonymous writer uses the phrase Paradisus Judaeorum to express his conviction that Poland is ruled by Jews and that they enjoy excessive privileges (Kot, 1937; Tokarska-Bakir, 2004, p. 54)" (square brackets in original).

3. Stanisław Kot (1937): " ... dwa krótkie utwory łacińskie, które odtad spotykamy razem w kopu rękopisach i drukach, często nawet złaczone w jedna całość .... W rękopisie Czartoryskich ... dano im wspólny tytuł: 'Pasquilllusze na królewskim weselu podrzucone.' ... I drugi utwór, 'Regnum Polonorum' ... stwierdza ... pomyślność Żydów".
4. Barbara Kirshenblatt-Gimblett (The Polish Review, 2016): "Similarly, the Wall of Words in the Paradisus Iudaeorum gallery (1569–1648) is a kind of chorus, sometimes in harmony, sometimes cacophonous. The quotations here play on the ambiguity of 'Paradisus Iudaeorum,' a formulation from a pasquinade critical of everything in the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth—foreigners, immigrants, 'heretics,' peasants, burgers, and servants, and also Jews. To characterize the Commonwealth as a Jewish paradise is a way of saying that Jews had it 'too good.' The Wall of Words, by assembling different perspectives, invites the visitor to consider to what extent and in what ways the Commonwealth was good for the Jews or bad for the Jews, worse for the Jews or better—and above all introduces the idea of a spectrum of relations, rather than a binary of good or bad. Our multivoiced approach and authored voices are critical to the openness of the narration and therefore to the openness of the historical narrative."
5. Stanisław Kot (1937): "Zaznaczyliśmy już, że w miarę lat i szerzenia się odpisów, satyra ulegała odmianie" (p. 11); "widać więc, że autor, choć katolik, nie lubi Włochów" (p. 12); "Inaczej oczywiście przekształcać musiał teksty protestantów ... usnięto więc zwrot o oszukaństwie ewangelików, przenosząc ten brzydki zwrot na cyganów a dodając chciwość kleru" (p. 12); "Jeszcze samodzielniej przerabiał satyrę na Polskę panslawista Chorwat ... Juraj Križanić  ... entuzjastę słowiańszczyzny raził, jak widać, w Polsce nadmiar cudzoziemców i ich wpływy: Cyganów, Niemców, Ormian, Szkotów i Żydów, skąd Polska przedstawia się jako siedziba włóczęgów" (pp. 12–13). ("We have already mentioned that with the years, as copies spread, the satire underwent changes" ; "the author, though a Catholic, does not like Italians" ; "Of course, he had to reshape the Protestants' texts differently... so the phrase about Protestant impostures was removed, transferring the odious phrase to the Gypsies and adding the greed of the clergy" ; "The satire on Poland was reshaped even more independently by the Panslavist Croat... Juraj Križanić... the devotee of Slavdom was evidently bothered by the superabundance of foreigners in Poland and by their influences: Gypsies, Germans, Armenians, Scots, and Jews, giving Poland the aspect of a seat of vagabonds". .)
6. Stanisław Kot (1937): "W miarę jak opinia szlachecka coraz bardziej zwracała się przeciwko wszelkiej krytyce i tylko na pochwały nadstawiała ucho coraz trudniej było publicystom przytaczać tak gorzką satyrę. ... I nie wypadało przypuścić, aby jej autorem mógł być Polak (p. 16). Podkreślmy, że te cudzoziemskie nazwiska autorów i ich dzieł są to fikcje ... Pęski uważał, że dogodniej mu wprowadzić do dyskusji owe zarzuty jako rozgłaszane przez cudzoziemców, niż gdyby im przyznał polskie pochodzenie. Zmyślił więc nazwiska autorów i dzieł (p. 19) ... Dla ludzi XVIII wieku satyra nasza uchodziła już tylko za utwór obserwatorów cudzoziemskich (p. 27)."

   "Omawiane powyżej satyry ... nie były u szlachty popularne. ... kierowały całe swoje ostrze przeciwko szlachcie. Sa one jednym z najdosadniejszych wyrazów autokrytki życia społecznego i gospodarczego, moralnego i politycznego w Polsce. Ale po nikt już nie podejmie ani gospodarczo-społecznej krytki ani sprawy polskiej. Jedynie tylko dyskusja żydowska jako najmniej obrażająca szlachtę, będzie odtąd nawiązywać do naszych satyr. I to jeszcze z zastrzeżeniem, iż podaje się je wyłącznie jako produkt cudzoziemski, jako złośliwe uwagi obcych o stosunkach polskich; uznać ich za wytwór samokrytyki polskiej już nie wypadało."

References

1. ^ Kot 1937, p. 2: "W rękopisie Czartoryskich ... dano im wspólny tytuł: 'Pasquilliusze na królewskim weselu podrzucone'. Jest to wiadomość, której nie było by powodu poddawać w wątpliwość. Wszak ślub Zygmunta III z Konstancją Austriaczką odbył się 11 grudnia 1605, zatem rzecz zupełnie naturalna, że utwór plątający się wśród wierszy rokoszowych z 1606 rozrzucany był właśnie podczas źle widzianego w społeczeństwie wesela." ("In the Czartoryskis' manuscript, they were given a joint title: Pasquilliusze na królewskim weselu podrzucone . There is no reason to doubt the information. The wedding of Zygmunt III and Constance of Austria took place on 11 December 1605, and so it is quite natural that a piece of writing, mixed in with rokosz verses of 1606 was scattered about during a wedding celebration that was ill-viewed in society.")
2. ^ Konieczny, Piotr (2021-06-23). "From Xenophobia to Golden Age: "Jewish Paradise" Proverb as a Linguistic Reclamation". Contemporary Jewry. 41 (2): 517–537. doi:10.1007/s12397-021-09380-4. ISSN 1876-5165. S2CID 236146777.
3. ^ Gromelski, Tomasz (2013). "Liberty and liberties in early modern Poland–Lithuania". In Skinner, Quentin; Gelderen, Martin van (eds.). Freedom and the Construction of Europe. New York: Cambridge University Press. p. 233 (215–234). ISBN 978-1-107-03307-8.
4. Krzyżanowski, Julian (1958). Mądrej głowie dość dwie słowie: Trzy wieki przysłów polskich [Word to the Wise: Three centuries of Polish proverbs]. Warsawa: Państwowy Instytut Wydawniczy. p. 435.
5. ^ Kot, Stanisław (1937). Polska rajem dla Żydów, piekłem dla chłopów, niebem dla szlachty [Poland: paradise for Jews, hell for peasants, heaven for the nobility]. Warszawa: Kultura i Nauka. p. 6. OCLC 459874686.
6. ^ "Regnum Polonorum est: Paradisus Judaeorum, infernus rusticorum". Wielkopolska Digital Library.
7. ^ Tokarska-Bakir, Joanna (28 December 2016). "Polin: 'Ultimate Lost Object'". Studia Litteraria et Historica. 5 (5): 7 (1–8). doi:10.11649/slh.2016.002.
8. Krzyżanowski 1958, p. 436.
9. ^ Mikołaj Gliński (27 October 2014). "A Virtual Visit to the Museum of the History of Polish Jews". Culture.pl. Retrieved 2018-09-25.
10. Covington, Coline (2017). Everyday Evils: A Psychoanalytic View of Evil and Morality. Abingdon and New York: Routledge. p. 122, note 1. ISBN 978-1-317-59304-1.
11. Engel, David (2012). "Salo Baron's View of the Middle Ages in Jewish History: Early Sources". In Engel, David; Schiffman, Lawrence H.; Wolfson, Elliot R. (eds.). Studies in Medieval Jewish Intellectual and Social History: Festschrift in Honor of Robert Chazan. Leiden: BRILL. p. 313 (299–316). ISBN 978-90-04-22233-5.
12. ^ Matyjaszek, Konrad (2017). "'You need to speak Polish': Antony Polonsky in an interview with Konrad Matyjaszek". Studia Litteraria et Historica (6): 10. doi:10.11649/slh.1706.
13. ^ Matyjaszek 2017, p. 10, note 21.
14. Nowak, Wojciech. A word from the Rector of the Jagiellonian University. Kraków: Jagiellonian University Press, 2014.
15. ^ Krzyżanowski 1958, pp. 435–437.
16. ^ Kot 1937, pp. 2–5.
17. ^ Starowolski, Szymon (1636). Stacye zołnierskie: Abo W wyćiągániu ich z dobr kośćielnych potrzebne przestrogi. Dla Ich Mćiow Pánow Zołnierzow stárych, y inszych młodych, co się ná Zołnierską vsługę sposabiáć będą [Soldier stations: A warning for extraction from Church lands. For Sir Soldiers old and young that will think about soldier's career.] (in Polish). p. 10.
18. ^ Palmer, William (1876). The Patriarch and the Tsar ... Trübner and Company. p. 58.
19. ^ Archivio storico lombardo (in Italian). Società storica lombarda. 1907. p. 409.
20. ^ Monumenta hungariae historica: Irök (in Hungarian). Magyar Tudományos Akadémia. 1894. p. 473.
21. Kot 1937, p. 2.
22. Speake, Jennifer, ed. (2015). Oxford Dictionary of Proverbs. 6th edition. Oxford: Oxford University Press, p. 92. ISBN 978-0198734901
23. Simpson, John and Speake, Jennifer, ed. (2008). "England is the paradise of women, the hell of horses, and the purgatory of servants". Oxford Dictionary of Proverbs. ISBN 978-0191727740
24. ^ Joanna Tokarska-Bakir (2004). Rzeczy mgliste: eseje i studia [Hazy Things: Essays and Studies]. Fundacja Pogranicze. p. 53. ISBN 978-83-86872-60-2. Mirror
25. ^ Garbowski, Christopher (2016). "Polin: From a 'Here You Shall Rest' Covenant to the Creation of a Polish Jewish History Museum. An interview with Barbara Kirshenblatt-Gimblett". The Polish Review. 61 (2): 14 (3–17). doi:10.5406/polishreview.61.2.3.
26. Kot 1937, p. 13.
27. Kot 1937, p. 16-17, 19, 27–28.
28. ^ Kot 1937, p. 28. ("As nobility opinion turned increasingly against any criticism and gave ear only to praise, it became increasingly harder for writers to quote such bitter satire.... Nor was it politic to suppose that its author could be a Pole. Let us emphasize that these foreign names of authors and their works are fictions... Pęski thought it more convenient to introduce those accusations into discussions as being voiced by foreigners than if he were to acknowledge their Polish origin. Thus he fabricated the names of authors and works. ... For 18th-century people, our satire passed for the work of foreign observers." "The satires discussed above... were not popular with the nobility.... hey directed their sharp edge against the nobility. They are one of the most powerful expressions of self-criticism of Poland's societal and economic, moral and political life. But after Starowolski no one would again take up economic-societal criticism nor the Polish question. Only Jewish discussion, as the least offensive to the nobility, will henceforth connect with our satires. And that, provided that they were being given out as purely a foreign product, as malicious comments by foreigners upon Polish affairs; it was no longer acceptable to see them as a product of Polish self-criticism." )
29. Krzyżanowski 1958, p. 435.
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37. Daniel Elphick (3 October 2019). Music behind the Iron Curtain: Weinberg and his Polish Contemporaries. Cambridge University Press. p. 18. ISBN 978-1-108-49367-3.
38. Klier, John (2011). "Chapter 1: Poland–Lithuania: "Paradise for Jews"". Russia Gathers Her Jews: The Origins of the "Jewish Question" in Russia, 1772-1825. Northern Illinois University Press. p. 3. ISBN 978-0-87580-983-0.
39. ^ Hundert, Gershon David (1997-10-01). "Poland: Paradisus Judaeorum". Journal of Jewish Studies. 48 (2): 335–348. doi:10.18647/2003/jjs-1997. ISSN 0022-2097.
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41. Norman Davies (2005). God's Playground A History of Poland: Volume 1: The Origins to 1795. Oxford. p. 165.
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Further reading

• Muszyński, Henryk (2017). "Polish-Jewish Relations Thirty Years after the Publication of the "Nostra Aetate" Conciliar Declaration". In Michnik, Adam; Marczyk, Agnieszka (eds.). Against Anti-Semitism: An Anthology of Twentieth-Century Polish Writings. Oxford University Press. p. 293. ISBN 978-0-19-062452-1.

• Jewish Polish history
• Social history of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth
• Latin proverbs
• 17th-century Polish literature
• 1606 works
• Satirical essays
• Antisemitism in Poland
• Polish satire