Shylock
A recent article in the Sunday Times concerning Michael Morpugo’s retelling of Shakespeare stories where he explains why he has decided to leave out the Merchant of Venice from the series raises many very uncomfortable questions. Not least of all since the article is written by Howard Jacobson (and here is a good example of inherent antisemitism, for I presume Howard is a Jew simply because of his last name, and that could be a useful definition of antisemitism).
Some personal background. Born on the south side of Chicago in the late forties meant that from an early age I was aware, though vaguely, of the word Jew and its slightly negative connotations. I also knew nigger and other now practically defunct terms for folks who were not white Anglo-Saxon protestants. I started school at St Joseph's because every white kid attended the local Catholic school - blacks were barred. But the Jewish kids were somehow classed as white by the church and were enrolled and then predictably did not attend on Yom Kippur - which annoyed the Catholic sisters intensely. Recounting such blatant racism now simply dates me as being old - some might say very old indeed. But, I assure you that was the norm in 50's Chicago.
When I was about 6 or 7, again on Chicago's south side, I remember being told that the Jewish kids down the street were taking a bath, naked, in their basement with only a window between the spectators and the bathers. Even at that tender age somehow I knew this was odd - but too good to miss. So, we stood outside and looked at a naked 6 year old Jewish girl. Not my proudest moment I admit. But it did serve to reinforce the fact that Jews were somehow different. Whether or not I noticed if her brother was circumcised I can't say as I noticed.
We moved to independence, Missouri when I was 10. In the fourth, fifth and sixth grades there were no black kids at all. Same for 7 and eight. Were there any Jews? I suppose so, but I never heard it mentioned. By the time I got to high school we had three or four black kids in our year group. I sat next to Donald Robinson, a black boy, in biology class. I’d like to think we were friends, but it never occurred to me to (for example) eat lunch with him or invite him to my house. I think my mom and dad would have taken a dim view of such an invitation. The unseen racism prevalent at the time made it almost impossible to do.
Moving into the world of work, the closest I came to a racial or ethnic minority were the Mexicans I ran into. Then At Western Electric there were a few blacks and everyone seemed to get along well. In the Army the covert racism was obvious. Strangely this was my real first experience of living and working with black people. My basic training company at Fort Polk, Louisiana was predominantly composed of black and bilingual Mexican Americans. Oddly, the training cadre was almost exclusively black and bilingual Spanish-speaking NCOs . I saw no evidence that this caused any problems. Any Jewish soldiers? No idea.
Religion was not a topic of conversation that ever came up.
Moving on to my time in Norway, there were very few blacks in our compliment. I do remember two. One was a very large,very jovial, AF enlisted man who could drink more sherry than anyone I have ever loopseen. One was a quiet, well spoken Army SP4 who had a Norgeweian girlfriend. Very pretty and very blonde, she was not him. Neither was in my social circle. In the 70s Norway was a very white very conservative country. Nowadays there are black and Asian Norwegian people and their lack of language skills is a point of contention in Norway today with at least one political party trying to institute a language test for citizenship.
I presume that there are Jewish Norwegians? (actually looking on Google I find that almost the entire Jewish community of Norway was removed to the Naxi concedntration camps where they perished. If the Norwegian people protested in the same way as the Danes, is not mentioned). There is a synagogue in Oslo today and a small, but active Jewish community.
To sum up : my exposure to both blacks and Jews in early life was small and patchy. In early adulthood, my concerns about black civil rights overshadowed my concerns about Jews in America.
Back to Michael Morpugo. His explanation as to why he decided to leave The Merchant of Venice out of his forthcoming series designed to introduce children to Shakespeare goes like this: “I avoided hylock because it worries me too much… There are assumptions right the way through about what it is to be a Jew and how Jews are thought of . . . for me it was best not to go there. It is too raw to write about for children.
The Times correspondent replies, “ I can’t pretend that I haven’t shared Morpugo’s reluctance to engage with this play. The Shylock sections are largely cruel and barbarous and the overriding tone is impatient and cynical. Shakespeare is too great a writer to be flatly racist, but I’ve seen many performances of the play that was. Shylock was too individually alive in the language of the play to be a figure of loathing the other characters see. It isn’t the Jew what's hateful, it’s the Christian Venetians. Yes there is antisemitism in the play, but it’s theirs, not Shakespeares.”
I'm an English teacher, therefore I am familiar with The Merchant of Venice. When I was 14, we read it in English lessons. So, I must try to look back through the process and make some recollection of how I reacted, (as for example upon first looking into Chapman Homer).
I knew that Shylock was the villain in the play. I knew that the christians were the heroes. I know that Shakespeare was a product of his time and antisemitism was common in England in the late 1500’s. Was I aware of the coarse racism? There I'm not so sure. I certainly don't remember the teacher talking about it. Were there any Jewish kids in the class? Again no real idea.
What is clear is that no thought went into picking the Shakespear play to study in terms of racism.anti-semitism.
But, wait a minute, what about other equally problematical Shakespeare plays? How about Othello? Full of racism (When Iago tells Brabanzio that “an old black ram / Is tupping your white ewe,” he demeans a passionate and loving relationship between two intelligent adults by characterizing Othello as a mindless rutting animal who has soiled the pure Desdemona with his lust.” What a great example courtesy of Othello: A+ Student Essay | SparkNotes The racism is even condoned, even praised by the critics!
What about misogyny in Richard III? I'll have her, but I will not keep her long. But the plain devil and dissembling looks? And yet to win her, all the world to nothing!
How about some good old fashioned common sense here?
It seems that by leaving out Merchant of Venice and ignoring other perhaps more blatant examples of Shakespear’s racism, etc, Morpugo is really saying that despite the fact that the plays and the characters in them are prisoners of their time he is simply going to single out Merchant of Venice as too difficult to deal with. The really telling feature is that Lambs Tales includes Merchant of Venice and Othello.
So, Morpugo’s reasoning is just a cop-out (or perhaps a good example of inverse racism.
A real Tragedy.
