Shylock, the cunning moneylender in Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice, is one of the great familiar figures of the world of drama. He is also one of the most controversial characters ever conceived. Photos.

Shylock, the Jewish moneylender in The Merchant of Venice who famously demands a pound of flesh as security for a loan to his antisemitic tormentors, is one of Shakespeare's most complex and idiosyncratic characters. With his unsettling eloquence and his varying voices of protest, play, rage, and refusal, Shylock remains a source of perennial fa...

This book explores responses to The Merchant of Venice by Jewish writers, critics, theater artists, thinkers, religious leaders and institutions.

Phillip Roth confronts his double, an imposter whose self-appointed task is to lead the jews out of Israel and back to Europe, a moses in reverse and a monstrous nemesis to the 'real' Philip Roth. This work is at once a spy story, a political thriller, a meditation on identity, and a confession.

"Yaffe provides a wide-ranging and probing reflection on the portrayal of Jews and Judaism in early modern thought. His innovative approach to the problem of Shakespeare's treatment of Shylock can stand for the originality of his book as a whole... Yaffe's interpretations are likely to prove controversial, but they are always thought-provoking." -- Virginia Quarterly Review Much attention has been paid to the place of Shylock in the history of anti-Semitism. Most scholars have agreed with Harold Bloom that Shakespeare's famous villain is drawn with a "murderous anti-Semitism" and that Shakespeare uncritically mirrors the rife anti-Semitism of his times. While others see only gross caricature in The Merchant of Venice, however, Martin Yaffe finds a subtle analysis of the Jew's place in a largely Christian society. In Shylock and the Jewish Question, Yaffe challenges the widespread assumption that Shakespeare is, in the final analysis, unfriendly to Jews. He finds that Shakespeare's consideration of Judaism in The Merchant of Venice provides an important contrast to Marlowe's virulent The Jew of Malta. In many ways, he argues, Shakespeare's play is even more accepting than Francis Bacon's notably inclusive New Atlantis or the Jewish philosopher Benedict Spinoza's argument for tolerance in the Theologico-Political Treatise. "Although Yaffe focuses on the Jewish question, his study is a lead-in to a study of the rise of liberal democracy, the development of religious toleration, the relation of church and state, and the inter-relation between politics, economics and religion -- all of these being vital in history's evolution towards modernity." -- Serge Liberman, Australian JewishNews "In a critique that promises to refuel scholarly controversy over the portrait of Shylock... Yaffe's retro-prospective approach to its political philosophy suggests interesting possibilities for contrasting popular anti-Semitic culture and the more tolerant, enlightened statesmanship of the seventeenth-century." -- Frances Barasch, Shakespeare Bulletin

"Shylock" is an award-winning play about a Jewish actor who finds himself condemned by his own community for his portrayal of Shakespeare's notorious Jew.

The thrilling story of the Jews in Venice – and the truth behind one of Shakespeare's most famous characters. Millions of visitors flood to Venice every year. Yet many are unaware of its history – one of dramatic expansion but also of rapid decline. And essential to any history of Venice during its glory days is the story of its Jewish population. Venice gave the world the word ghetto. Astonishingly, the ghetto prison turned out to be as remarkable a place as the city of Venice itself. With sound scholarship and a narrator's skill, Harry Freedman tells the story of Venice's Jews. From the founding of the ghetto in 1516, to the capture of Venice by Napoleon in 1797, he describes the remarkable cultural renaissance that took place in the Venice ghetto. Gates and walls notwithstanding, for the first time in European history Jews and Christians mingled intellectually, learned from each other, shared ideas and entered modernity together. When it came to culture, the ghetto walls were porous. Any history of Venice and its Jews also can't avoid the story of Shakespeare's Shylock. The cultural and political revival in the Venice ghetto is often obscured from history by this fictional character. Who, we wonder, was Shylock? Would the people of Venice have recognized him and what did Shakespeare really think of him? Shakespeare's ambivalent anti-Semitism reflects attitudes to Jews in Elizabethan England – but as Freedman demonstrates, Shakespeare's myth is wholly ignorant of the literary, cultural and interfaith revival that Shylock would have experienced.

An actress travels back in time to Venice and has a passionate affair with William Shakespeare, in this novel by a #1 New York Times–bestselling author. A glamorous Hollywood film star, Jessica Pruitt fears the best days of her career are behind her. Arriving in Italy soon after losing custody of her young daughter, she hopes to forget her woes by serving as a judge at the Venice Film Festival and immersing herself in preparations for her starring role in a new cinematic take on The Merchant of Venice. For the aging but still beautiful actress, this ancient, crumbling city of canals is the perfect escape, enchanting her with its history, its magic, and its mystery. Then one day, while strolling through the old Jewish quarter, she finds herself in a very different Venice—one that hasn’t existed for five hundred years—as the heroine of a new theatrical endeavor by an enigmatic young playwright named Will Shakespeare. Suddenly, impossibly, Jessica has found a new beginning, a new audience—and, in the arms of a genius fledgling bard, a love affair more stimulating, satisfying, and liberating than any she will ever know, even five centuries on. Originally published as Serenissima, this “hypnotic” novel by the bestselling author of Fear of Flying is a magical tale set in a magical city, and a delightfully uninhibited love story that transcends time (The Washington Post Book World). This ebook features an illustrated biography of Erica Jong including rare photos and never-before-seen documents from the author’s personal collection.