From Xenophobia to Golden Age: "Jewish Paradise” Proverb as a Linguistic Reclamation

Abstract

The phrase “Jewish paradise” (from Latin paradisus Judeorum) originated in an early seventeenth-century xenophobic and antisemitic poem. Over the centuries, the original poem has been forgotten and the phrase, originally intended to be a satirical exaggeration of the Jewish position, has become increasingly used as a neutral or even favorable expression referencing the Golden Age of Jewish Culture in early modern Poland-Lithuania. This paper traces the history of this transition and argues that it represents an example of the linguistic reclamation: turning an antisemitic phrase into a philosemitic one, used from Poland to Jewish communities worldwide.