When I first took my seat on the opening night of Theater 520’s production of The Merchant of Venice, I expected a slight tinge of anti-Semitism to add a bit of raucous humor to the performance. What I was not prepared for, however, was a play whose entire plot and moral conscience hinged on the demonization and denigration of Jewish people. In what I now consider to be a somewhat bittersweet couple of hours, I experienced the power of a culturally skewed piece of literature performed four centuries beyond its time. I felt the discomfort of being a minority emanate from the stage. I felt the uneasiness of being on the wrong side of a giant religious joke. I felt the awkwardness of seeing my own father, whom I had invited to see the play with me, cringe in response to Shakespeare’s blatant anti-Semitism. On the other hand, however, I thought that The Merchant of Venice was brilliantly performed and I would like to congratulate the entire cast and crew for a job extraordinarily well done. And though my prior statements may hint otherwise, I do not believe that it was a mistake on the part of the Theatre Department to select such a controversial play; in fact, I believe that a controversial play such as The Merchant of Venice can be a powerful learning tool in a community such as Andover, provided that we use the opportunity to discuss some of the issues that a play like this one presents, and we understand the historical context under which such a play was written. Anti-Semitism is a real thing; to watch The Merchant of Venice and witness its vehement anti-Semitism and then to dismiss such blatant denigration as a thing of the past is anti-Semitism unto itself. Not all discrimination is active. In fact, a great deal of it is passive; those who observe it and do nothing are guilty. And those of us who say that anti-Semitism like that of Shakespeare’s time no longer exists are equally guilty. Clearly, Shakespeare was on to something that is deeply and culturally rooted, for almost 350 years after audiences in England chuckled at Shakespeare’s Jew jokes, Adolf Hitler encouraged the mass murder of six million European Jews. Have we really made much progress since Shakespeare’s time? Since the Holocaust? Is Shakespeare’s parading of Jews in his plays at all morally different than the mockery of African-Americans in minstrel shows? Anti-Semitism is frequently separated from other types of racial discrimination for the obvious reason that Judaism is not a phenotypic trait (though some Jew jokes may beg to differ). I am Jewish, but people cannot determine that I am Jewish from my appearance in the same way that they may determine that someone else is African-American, Hispanic or Asian. And perhaps this is why, even on such a supposedly diverse campus, we pay little attention to the issue of anti-Semitism while we speak far more freely about issues surrounding racial and ethnic appearances. But where do we draw the line between race and religion? African-Americans are born with dark skin; Jews, however, are technically not born Jewish. Judaism is not in our DNA. So, in the eyes of the anti-Semite, is there something fundamentally wrong with a man who is born to Jewish parents but chooses not to be Jewish himself? Is he a heartless crook simply because of the blood that runs through his body? Or can his soul be saved by conversion, meaning that he is only heartless as long as he obeys Jewish law? Shakespeare seemed to believe the latter, for in his play, Shylock the Jew can only be saved when he converts to Christianity and forfeits his “heathen” Jewish practices. There is no doubt in my mind that William Shakespeare was an anti-Semite. His depiction of Shylock did not merely suggest that Shylock’s wretchedness was an individual personality quirk; it implied that wickedness is a naturally rooted result of Shylock’s Jewishness, that all Jews are inherently heartless demons. I was shocked by this portrayal, but surprisingly not appalled. Embarrassed, but not offended, because in spite of all its derogatory humor, I know the context of the play, and I realize that like so much racial demonization, it has no factual basis. For, in fact, it is unlikely that Shakespeare ever actually encountered a Jew in his life. It is even unlikely that anyone in Shakespeare’s original audiences ever encountered a Jew; Jews had been expelled from England for more than three centuries when The Merchant of Venice was first performed in 1597. And so for hundreds of years, no one in England had any interaction with Jews other than the degrading stereotypes promoted by the likes of William Shakespeare himself. Coincidentally, the performance of The Merchant of Venice fell in perfect accordance with Purim, the Jewish holiday celebrating our ability to overcome anti-Semitism and the hatred of anti-Semitic leaders. Anti-Semitism has plagued the Jewish people for practically as long as they have existed; it is an unfortunate reality that many Jews believe may always linger. But in a world such as ours in which a great deal of politics has everything to do with anti-Semitism, we cannot afford to ignore such perpetual hatred. Once again, I’d like to thank the Theater Department for selecting this controversial play. Not only would it be impossible and unrealistic to hide us from controversy forever, but it would be unwise. If we are never exposed to the issues that haunt the modern world, like anti-Semitism, we may never be able to address them.
