2~THE BULLETIN- Thursday, June 16,1977
This is the concluding portion of "Shylock and Anti-Semitism", which has been published in JWB editions of June 2 and June 9.
Author-teacher Morris U. Schappes of New York sent this article with permission to reprint when he read JWB Editor's View in two issues this spring dealing with "The Merchant of Venice." The topic is once again current with the Westcoast Actors production of the play performing this month as part of the current Heritage Festival here.
Mr. Schappes was a member of the English department at the City College in New York, 1928-1941 and taught Shakespeare there. He is also the editor of the prose, poetry and letters of Emma Lazarus, of A Documentary History of the Jews in the U.S. 1654-1875 and author of The Jews in the U.S., 1654-1954, A Pictorial History. This article first appeared in Jewish Currents of which Schappes is editor.
MOROCCO
ARAB SBSOeS, AUbtOCl|?tt>
*ourtesy Jemsalem Post)
SHYLOCK PROCEEDS at once (Act 3) to summarize what evil Antonio ("The Merchant") has done him; and it is well to note again the order in which Shakespeare writes the sequence/stressing the economic harm Antonio has done Shylock:
"He hath disgraced me, and hindered me half a million; laughed at my losses* mocked at my gains (by taking interest), scorned my nation, thwarted my bargains (by lending money gratis), cooled my friends, heated mine enemies; and what's his reason? I am a Jew. Hath not a Jew eyes?...."
And the climax of Shylock*s insistence on the physical humanity of the Jew is that he will take revenge against Antonio, the kind and generous Christian, who lends money but of friendship and drives do\yn the rate of interest that Shylock can charge on the Rialto.
That Shakespeare is not holding Shylock up for admiration as the long-suffering and persecuted Jew who finally asserts his humanity and dignity can be seen from what follows immediately after Shylock has ended his speech.
Tubal comes in, returning from trying to find Jessica. What does Shylock say when he is told Tubal could not find her, this Shylock, who has just protested he is like every other human being, "fed with the same food, hurt with the same weapons, subject to the same diseases, healed by the same means, warmed and cooled by the same winter and summer, as a Christian is."
SHYLOCK'S WORDS are: "Why, there, there, there, there! A diamond gone, cost me two thousand ducats in Frankfort! The curse never fell upon our nation till now; I never felt it tin now."
niere is a nionstrously cunning demonstration by Shakespeare of Shylock's character: "sufferance is the badge of all our tribe" indeed, when it is not persecution for religious belief that Shylock really feels is the curse upon his "nation" but the loss of a 2,(K)0 ducat diamond.
"I never felt it (the curse) tiU now____!" Is
this the man we are supposed to identify with, in or (Hit of context?
But this "Jew who hath eyes" proceeds to an even more horrible self-indictment, underlying the way we have already heard from Antonio's friends that Shylock commingles the loss of daughter and ducats in a contemptible and comic way.
Says Shylock: "I would my daughter-were dead at my foot, and the jewels in her ear! would she were hearsed at my foot, and the ducats in her coffin!"
There's an admirable and "sympathetic" statement to make of Shylock a "positive" symbol of suffering Jewry....
But it is as the scene ends that Shakespeare really turns the anti-Semitic knife.
Shylock is now bent on vengeance and his pound of flesh. He asks Tubal to prepare an officer who will arrest Antonio. Lest we have any doubt as to Shylock's motive, he states it again clearly: "I v/ill have the heart of him, if he forfeit; for were he out of Venice, I can make what merchandise I will."
That is, he will be able to do business without Antonio's interference.
BUT WHERE does Shylock arrange to meet Tubal in order to continue the plan to "get" Antonio — at the Rialto, the business exchange, or at his own or Tubal's home? Not at all. The scene ends with Shylock crying out.
immediately after the sentence just quoted, "Go go, Tubal, and meet me at our synagogue; go, good Tubal; at our synagogue, T\ibal."
Is further comment necessary on how Shakespeare stacks the cards not only against Shylock as a Jew but against Jews?
It is with relief, if we follow Shakespeare's " bent, that we get the contrast in the next scene, with the lovable and lovely Portia and the good Bassanio picking the right casket to win fair Portia.
To mar the pleasure, this charming company learns that Antonio's life is in danger; Jessica here stresses the acuteness of the danger by revealing that her father had told Tubal he wanted Antonio's pound of flesh rather than 20 times the sum he had lent Antonio.
When Antonio, under arrest, pleads with Shylock, the latter cries:
Jailor^ look to him: tell me not of mercy; This is the fool that lent out money gratis;
Jailor, look to him.
Should you have forgotten the essential confllctin the play, Shakespeare makes sure ybii remember it as the climax approaches. Antonio adds his own emphasis to what Shylock has just said:
He seeks m^ life: his reason well! know: I oft deliver*d from his forfeitures Many that have at times made moan to me;
Therefore he hates me,
IT IS IN THE GREAT court-room scene in Act 4 that Shakespeare makes his final con-, frontation between what is presented as Giristian mercy versus the Jew's insistence on "judgment," the "law" and his bond for a pound of Antonio's flesh nearest his heart.
The Duke presiding over the Court defines the situation when he opens by saying to Antonio:
I am sorry for thee: thou art come to answer
A stony adversary, an inhuman wretch Uncapable of pity, void and empty From any dram of mercy.
Shylock, urged by the Duke to relent, refuses because "by our holy Sabbath have I sworn/ To have the due and forfeit of my bond...."
He disdains to give a reason:
So can I give no reason, nor I will not,. More than a lodged hate and a certain loathing
I bear Antonio. ...
Antonio concededs it is impossible to soften Shylock's "Jewish heart." Shylock begins to sharpen on the sole of his shoe the knife with which he will cut Antonio's pound of flesh. Portia appears, delivers her "quality of mercy" speech, agreeing that since Shylock has law and justice on his side he may have his pound of fiesh. Bassanio offers Shylock "twice the sum" of
his loan to Antonio. Shylock retorts, "An oath,
I have an oath in heaven." Shylock is ready not only with is knife but
with the scales on which to weigh Antonio's
pound of flesh. When Portia asks whether he has a doctor
ready "To stop his wounds, lest he do bleed to (Continuedon Page 10) See: "THE MERCHANT"
Snyfh Moly€€iiii link with PFLP
AMSTERDAM — A man known as Eli Formes, a South Moluccan living outside Holland, is thought by authorities to have masterminded the seizure of a school and a train and the taking of hostages in Holland by groups of South Moluccan gunmen.
Formes was mentioned by Lud-wina Janssen, a Dutchwoman now serving a prison sentence in Israel. Janssen was arrested at Ben-Gurion airport on the eve of last Rosh Hashona, when a plot to hijack an airliner on Yom Kippur was discovered.
Janssen told Israeli authorities
that she and Formes had belonged to a group of 13 people who had attended a course at a training camp in South Yemen, which was run by supporters of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine.
JCNS
- DEATHS 1977 -JOLAN BLUMENTHAL JuneO
As another Bulletin community service feature/ Deaths will be published weekly as they are regis-tered.~.THE PUBLISHER.
Remember the Sabbath
Sabbath be^ns, light candles
Friday, June 17,9:00 p.m. Sedra Korach, Numbers Sabbath ends, Havdallah June 18,10:00
Friday, June 24,9:02 Sedra Chukat, Numbers Sabbatliends, Havdallali June 25,10:02
JEWISH CALENDAR LUACH 5737-1977
Rosh Cbodesli
Tammoz..........June 16-17
SliivaAsarB'Tanunnz...Jaly 3 Rosh Ciiodesh Av.....:. Jnly 16
TIsha B'Av............ .Jnly 24
TnB'Av...............July 30
Rosh Chodesh EIol . .Ang. 14-15 RoshHasliona .....Sept. 13-14
Endorsed Appeals
To end of June CJA Campaign Girls' Town Jerusalem May29-Juiie30
To end of June Blue Box Drive, JNF
Social Calendar
Vancouver Women's ORT Spring Tea.............. June 16
B.B. Lion^s Gate InstaUation _____ .....June 19
Golden Age
Luncheon...........____June 20
Talmud Torah
Graduation............. .June 20
Talmud Torah''Open House" ......____.......June22
"Folk Fest" at JCC
........................... June 26
Hier Farewell Reception
atS.T...................June27
Pioneer Women Adoption
Luncheon ............... June 29
EndorsaUons are published- as a Bulletin community service. Errors or omissions can be corrected only by Jewish Community Fund & Council, phone 2S1-8101. —THE PUBLISHER
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Thursday, June 16,1977
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