Was William Shakespeare an Anti-Semite?

william shakespeare never saw a jew in his life.

the question has been posed and no one knows the answer. on the one hand, merchant of venice is so blatantly anti semitic that one is tempted to label the bard an anti semite; on the other hand, his depiction of a greedy and spiteful jew is so over the top that it can be said he was painting a caricature of that era and its unabashed racism. shakespeare may very well, it has been posited, have been very pro semitic and was using his stories to make others see the foolishness of their prejudices. there were no jews in england from 1290 to the de facto…legalization is the wrong word because it just isnt true…but jews were essentially no longer banned after cromwell decided to allow a small group of jews who had been living secretly in england to remain.

Yes and no. The Merchant of Venice was antisemitic but nowhere near as bad as other things from the same time period. My own theory is that since he didn’t know any Jews he had no problem using the standard stereotype to sell a play.

Why the need to apologize for his anti-semitism by excusing it with he never met a Jew. That is an even larger condemnation for his blatant anti-semitism. He never met a Jew and he yet hates them.

hershi: and you conveniently disregarded the rest of my post

which is entirely possible. however, the opposite is also possible, yet most people never even consider the possibility.

Even if he wasnt as bad as others in his time, it doesnt make him a tzaddik; there are bigger and smaller anti-semites. im not saying he was one at all, im just arguing the point. for the record, i really enjoy reading shakespeare.

right. a goy is a ganav, a goy is a ligner. im not disagreeing that the most likely scenario is that he actually was an anti semite following what was socially accepted, but one shouldnt discredit the possibility that he wasnt.

Longarekel just like most frum jews are anti-gentile.

The Cromwell Rebellion occured after Shakespeare, So there were no jews in England at Shakespeares time (At least open jews)

Merchant of Venice was not as anti-semetic as say The Jew among thorns by Grimms Fairy Tales (Cinderella, Snow White)

Shylock was not really portrayed as a bad guy at the end , Shakespeare probably never met a jew in his life

I am a Jew. Hath not a Jew eyes? Hath not a Jew hands,

organs, dimensions, senses, affections, passions; fed with the same

food, hurt with the same weapons, subject to the same diseases,

heal’d by the same means, warm’d and cool’d by the same winter

and summer, as a Christian is? If you prick us, do we not bleed? If

you tickle us, do we not laugh? If you poison us, do we not die?

And if you wrong us, do we not revenge? If we are like you in the

rest, we will resemble you in that.

Read the Jew Among Thorns by Grimms Fairly Tales

Elvis was Jewish. Columbus, Castro, and Shakespeare were not, much as people like to talk that they were. Gaddafi, on the other hand, is still a question.

Hi Sam2,

Regarding Columbus. I read some amazing things from the Z’man about Columbus possibly being Jewish. He even penned letters with x’s in the upper right hand corner of the paper where a bais, samech, daled would be.

I wish I remembered more from the article.

Also, with regards to Castro; his mother had a maiden name that was known only among the marrano community. Also, there are some records of Fidel secretly giving money and appearing at a few Jewish events, counter to his public stance on religion.

If you care to comment, I would be interested in your thoughts/information.

And what are your thoughts on Achmaddogdinajad being from Jews who converted out?

ItcheSrulik: Yeah, I know. That was me twisting your point to suit my own purposes. 🙂 Seriously, though, I don’t have a definite opinion as why he wrote what he wrote. I was just trying to show that you can’t have any sort of opinion without doing the research. Because there are a lot of favorable interpretations. I don’t know why people think they have a right to do this when it comes to literature.

I must say that I’m not a Shakespeare acolyte, but I do like Macbeth, Julius Caesar and Antony and Cleopatra. 🙂 Richard III is also pretty epic. Macbeth’s my favorite, partly because I think it’s so much better than the other four tragedies.

I like Macbeth because it’s the least depressing of the tragedies. I’ve never read Antony and Cleopatra.

BTGuy: I’ve heard all of those things about Columbus too. I asked several experts in the field and they said they are all false.

Gaddafi has an aunt who claims to share a maternal grandmother who also claims she’s Jewish.

I guess Castro could be from a Maranno family. That’s not how I heard he was Jewish but that could be. I don’t know the relevant positions of the Poskim about what to do about 20th-century Maranno families though.

I never heard that about the Hilarya so I never looked into it.

How can you be an anti-Semite without meeting a Jew? It’s like not liking butternut squash kugel or something because you’ve never tried it. Or being bad at tennis because you’ve never played it.

Then again, he may well have met Jews, comsidering that many of his plays are conjectured to have been written about his possible travels during his blank decade when he vanished. He apparently knew a lot of street plans and clothing styles of many cities because he visited them then. Perhaps he may have met Jews then.

Then there’s always the possibility that Shakespeare wasn’t written by Shakespeare, which would make it even more possible he was anti-Semitic.

Mishpacha had a really interesting article on the subject a year or two back.

It would be more plausible to say that Dickens was an anti-Semite than Shakespeare, and at least he eliminated the tens of references to Fagin being “the Jew” at some later point. He actually definitely met Jews.

I (sort of) agree with squeak…the masses just perceive him with a sort of removed reverence, with little interest or appreciation, while academics tend to view him with quite an exaggerated regard. But anyway. Whatever anti-Semitic references are in his works are at worst meaningless, and possibly even misconstrued.

Very interesting, OneOfMany.

I enjoy reading Shakespeare. That’s my contribution to this thread.

Short answer to OP – maybe. Yesh ladun, as they say in the yeshivah velt. The inyan, it seems, is tzarich iyun.

And guess what? He had no hunchback nor “with’rd arm”. So apparently Shakespeare was totally not any kind of Tudor/Stuart PR guy… :-p

1) Sort of like ItcheSrulik said, it’s very likely that he was just pandering to the cultural biases of his time to make his works popular without having a confirmed belief in them. Which brings us to:”

He had no need to write anything at ALL about Jews. His plays were already successful. I guess we could debate this ad nauseum.

Some people feel Marlowe WAS Shakespeare. Their styles were similar. Personally, I love S’s works. The stories have withstood the test of time and have often been updated to make modern movies and shows out of their plots. “West Side Story” was a retelling of “Romeo and Juliet.”

True, but in Shakespeare’s time, defective posture was probably considered grievous enough to merit some hyperbole. ^_^

Sam2 -“BTGuy: I’ve heard all of those things about Columbus too. I asked several experts in the field and they said they are all false.”

I don’t know who your experts are, but many experts disagree. There are even more experts that I’m posting here. There is quite a lot of scholarly debate on Columbus’ origin.

From the Huffington’s Post:

“Over five centuries after the famed explorer’s death, historians are taking a fresh look at what motivated Christopher Columbus to make his voyage across the Atlantic — and how his faith may have played into those motivations.

Some scholars, after analyzing Columbus’ will and other documents, have devised a new theory about the explorer. They believe he was a Marrano, or a Jew who pretended to be a Catholic to avoid religious persecution. These historians also theorize that Columbus’ main goal in life was to liberate Jerusalem from Muslim control, and that he decided to take his historic quest to North America in order to find a new homeland for Jews who had been forced out of Spain.

During the time of Columbus’ voyage, Marranos were a targeted group. Tens of thousands of them were tortured during the Spanish Inquisition, so keeping one’s true religious identity secret was a crucial priority for many.

As CNN reports, Columbus’ will contained five provisions that some scholars believe to be evidence of the explorer’s true faith:

Two of his wishes — tithe one-tenth of his income to the poor and provide an anonymous dowry for poor girls — are part of Jewish customs. He also decreed to give money to a Jew who lived at the entrance of the Lisbon Jewish Quarter.

On those documents, Columbus used a triangular signature of dots and letters that resembled inscriptions found on gravestones of Jewish cemeteries in Spain. He ordered his heirs to use the signature in perpetuity.

According to British historian Cecil Roth’s “The History of the Marranos,” the anagram was a cryptic substitute for the Kaddish, a prayer recited in the synagogue by mourners after the death of a close relative. Thus, Columbus’s subterfuge allowed his sons to say Kaddish for their crypto-Jewish father when he died. Finally, Columbus left money to support the crusade he hoped his successors would take up to liberate the Holy Land.

Scholars also point to the real financiers of the voyage as evidence of the trip’s purpose. While most schoolchildren grow up learning that the expedition was financed by Queen Isabella, historians say it was mostly paid for by two prominent Jews who had been forced to convert to Catholicism, Louis de Santangel and Gabriel Sanchez.

While these claims may be difficult to verify, the new portrait of Columbus painted by these scholars adds a complicated layer to the already convoluted sentiment toward the famed explorer. While he is lauded in the United States with a federal holiday and a receives a great deal of credit for discovering North America, his legacy has been tainted by charges of genocide and exploitation. But if Columbus’ true intent was not imperialism, but freedom from religious trial, public perception of the man may shift yet again.”

just my hapence: …can’t tell whether or not that was sarcastic…

I believe that he was an anti-semite because he had a false image of Jews that was very common at the time.

In the same vein, Mark Twain would be considered a racist (try reading “Huckleberry Finn” and you’ll see what I mean) in our time, but in his time he was very liberal and progressive for suggesting that blacks and whites can be friends and that slavery is wrong.