Talk:Paradisus Judaeorum

Pars pro toto
This article started out on 25 September 2018, titled "Heaven for [...] nobles, hell for [...] peasants, paradise for [...] Jews". The title was a complete recapitulation of a certain 19th-century Polish saying, but for the absence of the saying's second member: "purgatory for townfolk".

The latter modern saying evolved, largely by condensation, from 5 Latin-language texts, of 1606, 1664, 1672, 1685, and 1708-09, which reflected a jaundiced view of, variously, "the Kingdom of Poland" (the first version), "Poland" (the second version), and "the illustrious Kingdom of Poland" (the last three versions).

The first, third, and fifth versions all feature the quartet of nobles, townfolk, peasants, and Jews. The second and fourth versions are missing the townfolk.

The only consistently present member of the four classes -- in all the 17th-, 18th-, and 19th-century versions -- that has found some fully laudatory interpretations appears to involve "the Jews".

While the 17th- and 18th-century versions and the 19th-century one have sought to characterize, literally or figuratively, the entire Polish polity, this article has ended up with a title, "Paradisus Judaeorum", which suggests that its sole subject is Poland's Jewish population, which until World War II did not exceed 10% of Poland's overall population.

This is surely an instance of pars pro toto -- of using part of a thing to represent the entire thing.

Would it not be better to retitle the core of this article to something like "Regnum Polonorum est..." and to devote a separate article, titled "Paradisus Judaeorum", specifically to the historic vicissitudes of that ethnicity in Poland? Nihil novi (talk) 15:37, 20 June 2024 (UTC)