Date: Fri, 6 Dec 1996 16:00:33 -0500
From: Edith Lank <lank@SJFC.EDU>
Subject: Shakespeare
I never have thought of Shakespeare as an anti-Semite. Jews had been expelled from England and he certainly never knew one. He borrowed stock characters from old tales and made them live; for him using a Jew as a character would be something like using a Martian for us. It probably never occurred to him that a Jew would ever see one of his plays, or anyone would be influenced in relationships with Jews by remembering Fagin.
Anyhow, he did empathize with these totally unknown people -- hath not a Jew eyes?
submitted from an internet list by a student.
NEW BOOK
Shakespeare and the Jews, James Shapiro (New York: Columbia
University press, 1996).
I have not actually 'seen' the book, but it was reviewed in the last Sixteenth Century Journal (XXVII/4 1996). Shapiro works with English attitudes towards the Jews from Shakespeare's time to the eighteenth century. Most interesting, though, is his use of materials that have not been uncovered before. He talks about specific myths and images created to make the Jew 'other' in Shakespeare's society. Looks great!
Jews in the Middle Ages: This site includes some primary source material on Jews during the Middle Ages. It isn't exactly what I was looking for, but it is interesting.