Jews In England and Shakespeare

Photo Courtesy of JPaudit | CC Flickr

After my classes' discussion about the antisemitism or villainous Christianity (interpret it how you will) presented in The Merchant of Venice, I was intrigued to know a little more about Shakespeare's interactions with the Jewish people. I was surprised to find out, he didn't have any. There were no Jews in England at the time Shakespeare was writing.

HOWEVER, he did have experience with his country's history. He would have understood that when there were many Jews in England, they were not considered citizens (though they were not forced to live in Ghettos either) and thus is was hard for them to find work. Since citizens were not allowed to lend money with interest, the Jewish people often turned to usury and became their own debt collectors, thus creating a cultural resentment towards the faith and the people. He would have known about the two massacres of Jews in the 12th century. He would've known that Jews were forbidden to be moneylenders in 1275 and expelled from England in 1290, not to return till 1655 (hence no Jews in England during Shakespeare's lifetime.)

BEST of all, Shakespeare would have heard much of the folklore that circulated about the unknown culture of Jews after their expulsion from England. Jews were believed to ritualize murder of English peoples (especially children at Easter) in their private ceremonies (i.e. passover). This folklore has no basis in fact -- duh.



I took a folklore class a year ago and we talked about how folklore is generally created around the anxieties and tensions in our culture at the time. I did my project on pregnancy folklore and ruminated about how people are anxious about protecting the children we have because in our children is our future. Thus the folklore surrounding pregnancy was representative of the anxieties people in our culture have about protecting children.

The English created folklore about Jews because they didn't understand the culture and they were anxious about the unknown with whom they had a history of prejudice against. I'm sure Shakespeare had heard, understood, and possibly even participated in the proliferation of this folklore. It makes the Merchant of Venice even more interesting because after he makes the Christians out to be almost anti-heroes, one must wonder if he really bought into the folklore or disdained it.

The article I drew my facts from was found through luminarium. It is an article on the production website for Masterpeice Theater of PBS.