2 ~ THE BULLETIM - Thursday, June 2,1977
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 returning 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.
ORSON WELLES abandoned what he said was a lifelong ambition to play Shylock when he announced in January, 1960 that he was cancelling his scheduled London production of Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice.
Swastikas had appeared at Cologne, West Germany and were being spread by the Nazi international underground into England, the United States and other lands.
Welles explained to the London Express: "No, until all the church walls are clean — and safely clean, top — I think Shylock, with his Jewish gabardine, his golden ducats and his pound of flesh, should be kept on the bookshelves until a safer epoch.**
Are we in that "safer epoch'* now in the U.S., Canada, anywhere?
(Israel is of course excluded and I am not concerned about performances of this play in Tiddish or Hebrew or before exclusively Jewish audiences. To such audiences you could read Hitler's Mein Kampf in any language without stirring them to anti-Semitism.)
I know of no country in the world today (except Israel) in which performances of The Merchant Of Venice could be given before general audiences with no risk of reinforcing, stirring or stimulating anti-Semitic attitudes or prejudices. For the anti-Semitism is built into the very structure and backbone of the play and cannol be eliminattBd if Shakespeare's text is fully or substantially followed.
FOR 350 YEARS it has been staged with many "interpretations," including attempts to win syinpathy for Shylock. Yet the word "Shylock" is, has been and continues to be, a term of abuse.
There is no record of anyone ever having come away from a reading of the play or the witnessing of even the most "sympathetic" Shylock portrayal who has thereafter used the term "Shylock" as a word of praise for any human being.
For example, after the performance of The Merchant of Venice at the University of (iieorgia in Athens "a Jewish school child here in Athens has been repeatedly taunted with the name of 'Shylock,' and I would think that this was not the only harm done as a result of exposing many minds in the formative years to the distasteful stereotyping continued in this play," wrote Rabbi Nathaniel Zimskind, Hillel director, to the Dean of the-College of Arts and Sciences at the University.
Yet many who produce the play, including Jewish actors performing as Shylock, disregarding the stage history of centuries, vainly assume that they will at last find that interpretation \yhich will be both good aiakespeare and, so to speak, "good for Jews."
Because we are convinced there has been and can be no such production, we wish as briefly as possible to outline why the play as a whoZe is unalterably anti-Semitic.
Thef act that the play is full of great poetry and prose and is a product of Shakespeare's mature genius for construction and stagecraft makes it therefore only the more dangerous to perform until we come to that "safer epobh," noted by Orson Welles, in which anti-Semitism will be a thing of the past.
ITIS NECESSARY to view the play as a viiiole if one is both to understand it and to graspits inherit anti-Semitism. Some people pick but parts of a couple of speeches by Shylock, ignore the entire dramatic context, treat the excerpts as if they were isolated arias in some lost opera — and come to the conclusion that the play really constitutes a defense of Jews against their persecutors and detractors!
Thus in a sadly confused apology for the play published in the B'nai B'rith National Jewish Monthly March and April, 1962, Dr. David Klein, a former colleague of mine in the English department at the Qty College in New York asserts: *Tndeed, if these two passages were all that was extant, would we not conclude that the lost play must have been an arraignment of the world's inhumanity toward the Jews?"
Indeed, yes! But if the play had been lost, the Jews would not have been tagged for centuries with the vile epithet, "Shylock," nor taunted as people who always seek their "pound of flesh."
Apart from the bigoted "Christ-killer" epithet, has any image of the Jews been more damaging than that of **Shylock?** (The image of Dickens* Fagin would be next in order.)
But the play is indeed not lost; it is indeed too much with lis. And even those isolated passages, when taken in context, as we shall see, take on a melaning quite different from that ascribed to them in isolation.
FOR WHAT IS the play about? What is its central conflict? :
Writing at the end of the 16th century, Shakespeare presented us with a play in wiiich the tension is caused by a conflict bet\yeen two ways of lending money: the way of lending mdney out of love and friendship for theborrower versus the way of lending money to make money by getting interest.
In Shakespeare's day this contrast was still an issue. Under feudalism, the Christian Cliurch had banned Christians from practising usury, which was the original term for lending money at any interest.
As capitalism developed, money lending at interest, or banking, became a pillar.of that social system. The Church compliantly altered its definition of usury to taking money at excessive interest, with the definition of excessive depending upon many factors.
But in 1596, when Shakespeare wrote The Merchant of Venice, capitalism in England was in its infancy and the Church had not yet changed its definition. In fact it was not until 1638-40 that the first work establishing the capitalist theory of interest was produced in Holland.
The new money-lending technique of interest was coming to the fore, against the objection of both Church and feudal precapitalist or anti-capitalist classes and sentiments.
WHEN SHAKESPEARE;^ basing himself as usual on old sources, picked his theme and story line, he decided to cast his wei^t against the new interest-breeding way of lending money and in favor of the old feudal, Christian way of lending it but of friendship.
Seeking to add an additional emotional weight to this latter side, Shakespeare stacked the cards against* the interest-breeding way of money lending by making that money lender a Jew.
This was done deliberately by Shakespeare, since in his source the money lender who exacted the "pound of flesh" was not a Jew! Shakespeare makes the conflict between two waysof money lending into a conflict between the Christian way and the Jewish way!
Now of course since Shakespeare's day capitalisih.and money lending (banking) have become respectable. This social change, and the train of consequences that included humanitarian sentiments and even the beginning of the struggle for emancipating the Jews of England, caused some people to be uneasy about the obvious bias of a conflict (Continued on Page 4) See: SHYLOCK
. . and next time, Mr. Goldstein, don't call>nie 'shammas'!"
POST OFFICE 'RECOGNIZES' PALESTINE
NEW YORK—U.S. i>ostal authorities have 'recognized* the existence of an Arab Palestinian State. In the Post Office's latest ERiblication of International Postage Rates and Fees» a new listing covers postal connecticms with Palestine (Western Arab).
There are only two minor differences in the regulaticms. Mail
- DEATHS 1977 -
SARAHFOX May22
ALBERT STEINER May22
ERNEST JAMES May 25 ,
As another Bulletin community ser* vice feature. Deaths will be pub-lished weekly as they are regis-tered.~THE PUBLISHER.
to Israel can be sent special delivery, but no such sejrvice is aivailable for Palestine (Western Arab). Also <me can send parcels to Israel of up to 22 pounds, but to the new area only up to 11 pounds.
It is believed that the name. Western Arab, is derived from the designation of tiiat sector as West Jordan.
Endorsed Appeals
To end of June CJA Campaign
Girls* Town Jerusalem May 29-June 30
To end of June Blue Box Drive, JNF
Social Calendar
Remember the Sabbath
Sabbath begins, light candles
Friday, June 3,^:51 SedraBeha'aloteche, Numbers Sabbath ends, Havdallah June4,9:51
Friday, June 10,8:57 Sedra ShlachLecha^Numbers Sabbath ends, Havdallah June 11,9:57
JEWISH CALENDAR LUACH 5737-1977
Rosh Chodesh
Tammuz ......______June 16-17
Shiva Asar B'Tammuz... July 3 Rosh Chodesh Av...... .July 16
TIsha B'Av..,......... July 24
Ta Bi'Av----.. July 30
Rosh Chodesh Elul . .Aug. 14-15 Rosh Hashona  .... .Sept. 13-14
JCF and C Annual Meeting..........--------
Girls Town Dinner..... Vancouver Women's ORT
Spring-Tea'■^.-v v..
B.B. Lion's Gate Installation .—
Golden Age Luncheon...........
Talmud Torah/ Graduation.....
Talmud Torah "Open SIousG .....••••••t*««
"Folk Fest" at JCC
Hier Farewell Reception
••••••• • • • •. • v.*
Pioneer Women Adoption Luncheon .............
.June 2 June 15
'Juhel6 June 19 June 20 June 20 June 22 June 26 June 27 June 29
Endorsaiions are published as a Bulletin community service. Errors or omissions can be corrected only by Jewish Community Fund & Council, phorie 261-81 Ql.
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