Dec 2, 2019
There were only a few hundred
Jews living in England during Shakespeare’s lifetime, and of the
ones who were there, they would meet and worship in secret.
Outwardly, these Jews would either have converted to Christianity
or lied about their faith to keep from coming under suspicion. As
callous as it seems for the nation to have been suspicious of Jews,
famous Jewish people in high places, like Roderigo Lopez, physician
to Queen Elizabeth I, gave the nation cause to be scared of them as
Lopez was arrested for trying to poison the Queen. Despite the
suspicions around Jewish people, and their faith, many Jews were
employed at universities like Oxford and Cambridge during
Shakespeare’s lifetime, as teachers of Hebrew, and even at the
Bodleian library helping with the Hebrew collections there. In
light of Shakespeare’s very Jewish play, Merchant of
Venice, we have our
guest, Dr. Athony Bale, here this week to help us explore the
presence, reputation, and reception of Jews, and characters like
Shylock, by the average playgoer during Shakespeare’s
lifetime.