Shakespeare was an anti-Semite”. “Shakespeare sympathized with Jews”. “Shylock was a villain”. “Shylock was a victim”....  The Merchant of Venice is a "problem play" because of its internal contradictions, its historical and contemporary associations with anti- and philo-Semitism, and the changing depiction of Shylock in theater and film productions. Audiences, readers, critics, and teachers have struggled to understand Shylock and the playwright who created this baffling character. As one critic put it (Beauchamp 2011), Shakespeare has been "savaged" by those who view him as anti-Semitic and "salvaged" by those who cannot accept that the icon of Western culture held views that are anathema to civilized people today.

All this makes this "problem play" a pedagogical problem, as well, especially in an Israeli college classroom. To misquote Shakespeare—to teach or not to teach? And if to teach—how?

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In this talk, we will describe a method of teaching The Merchant of Venice from an unusual theoretical approach. After introducing the students to "savaging" and "salvaging" readings, we expand our understanding and make the play more accessible to our students using Stanley Fish's reader-response theory, in which an "interpretive community," in this case Jewish Israeli students, brings its beliefs and ideologies to a text to create meaning. Thus, we meet Shylock, the stereotypical greedy, murderous Jew; we consider him as a human and humane victim; and finally our interpretive community creates in him a character whose failures in Judaism turn the play from Christian comedy to Jewish tragedy.

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Dr. Emmy Leah Zitter is English Department Head and Senior Lecturer in Literature at Michlalah-Jerusalem College and Senior Lecturer at Shaanan College. She has presented papers at international conferences and has published extensively about a variety of topics connected to literature. More recently, she has published articles concerning the intersection of Judaism and literature, including an article about the influence of Benjamin Franklin's Autobiography on Cheshbon haNefesh, a classic work of Jewish thought, and an analysis of the Biblical story of the Binding of Isaac (Akeidat Yitzchak) in the light of contemporary assessment theories.

Shakespeare was an anti-Semite”. “Shakespeare sympathized with Jews”. “Shylock was a villain”. “Shylock was a victim”....  The Merchant of Venice is a "problem play" because of its internal contradictions, its historical and contemporary associations with anti- and philo-Semitism, and the changing depiction of Shylock in theater and film productions. Audiences, readers, critics, and teachers have struggled to understand Shylock and the playwright who created this baffling character. As one critic put it (Beauchamp 2011), Shakespeare has been "savaged" by those who view him as anti-Semitic and "salvaged" by those who cannot accept that the icon of Western culture held views that are anathema to civilized people today.

All this makes this "problem play" a pedagogical problem, as well, especially in an Israeli college classroom. To misquote Shakespeare—to teach or not to teach? And if to teach—how?

‍

In this talk, we will describe a method of teaching The Merchant of Venice from an unusual theoretical approach. After introducing the students to "savaging" and "salvaging" readings, we expand our understanding and make the play more accessible to our students using Stanley Fish's reader-response theory, in which an "interpretive community," in this case Jewish Israeli students, brings its beliefs and ideologies to a text to create meaning. Thus, we meet Shylock, the stereotypical greedy, murderous Jew; we consider him as a human and humane victim; and finally our interpretive community creates in him a character whose failures in Judaism turn the play from Christian comedy to Jewish tragedy.

‍

Dr. Emmy Leah Zitter is English Department Head and Senior Lecturer in Literature at Michlalah-Jerusalem College and Senior Lecturer at Shaanan College. She has presented papers at international conferences and has published extensively about a variety of topics connected to literature. More recently, she has published articles concerning the intersection of Judaism and literature, including an article about the influence of Benjamin Franklin's Autobiography on Cheshbon haNefesh, a classic work of Jewish thought, and an analysis of the Biblical story of the Binding of Isaac (Akeidat Yitzchak) in the light of contemporary assessment theories.

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