Wrestling With Shylock: Jewish Responses to the Merchant of Venice

Cover......Page 1
Half-title......Page 3
Title page......Page 5
Copyright information......Page 6
Dedication......Page 7
Table of contents......Page 9
List of Illustrations......Page 11
List of contributors......Page 14
Acknowledgments......Page 20
Preface......Page 23
Part I Introductions......Page 27
1 Literary Sources and Theatrical Interpretations of Shylock......Page 29
Changing Stage Images of Shylock: The Rise and Fall of the Victorian Paradigm......Page 40
2 The Anti-Shylock Campaign in America......Page 59
Part II Discourses......Page 75
3 Shylock in German-Jewish Historiography......Page 77
4 Yiddish Shylocks in Theater and Literature......Page 100
The Merchant of Venice in Yiddish: A Performance Overview......Page 102
Yiddishizing Shylock......Page 108
Explaining Shylock......Page 110
Claiming Shylock......Page 116
Authenticating Shylock......Page 120
Fantasizing Shylock......Page 124
Introduction: Lawyers as Commentators on The Merchant of Venice......Page 131
Rudolf von Ihering: Shylock’s Noble Plea for Right vs. Portia’s “Miserable Quibble”......Page 132
Anton Schuetz and the Alien Statute Elaborated......Page 135
How Law Aids in Understanding the Trial’s Denouement......Page 137
The Participation of Jewish Lawyers and Judges in  “Venice-in-America” Mock Trials......Page 140
A Jury Trial in Washington DC Presided Over by Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg......Page 141
Part III The Stage......Page 143
6 David Belasco’s 1922 Production of The Merchant of Venice......Page 145
7 New York City, 1947: A Season for Shylocks......Page 166
The Donald Wolfit Company......Page 168
Jewish Productions......Page 174
Shylock ’47......Page 175
Shylock and His Daughter......Page 181
Shylock after 1947......Page 192
8 The Merchant of Venice in Mandatory Palestine and the State of Israel......Page 194
Leopold Jessner and Habima......Page 199
Competing Visions of Shylock......Page 207
Jessner’s The Merchant of Venice......Page 211
Responses to Jessner’s Merchant......Page 215
Israeli (Post-1948) Productions of  The Merchant of Venice......Page 217
Conclusion......Page 222
9 Fritz Kortner and other German-Jewish Shylocks before and after the Holocaust......Page 224
Reinhardt’s Shylocks......Page 230
Kortner’s Pre-War Shylocks......Page 235
Postwar Shylocks......Page 242
10 Evoking the Holocaust in George Tabori’s Productions of The Merchant of Venice......Page 250
The Merchant of Venice (As Performed in Theresienstadt) (1966)......Page 253
Improvisations on Shakespeare’s Shylock (1978)......Page 259
Lovers and Lunatics (1989)......Page 266
Shylock as a Touchstone: The Merchant of Venice on the German Stage......Page 269
Part I......Page 272
Part II......Page 284
The Merchant of Venice in Buchenwald: The Conception and the Concept......Page 286
Dramaturgy and Performance......Page 290
The Production Process......Page 296
Reception and Conclusion: The World of the Play, the World of the Playhouse, and the World beyond the Playhouse......Page 297
Postcolonial Shylocks......Page 299
“Writing Back” to Shakespeare......Page 305
The Jew’s Bond/The Bonded Jew......Page 312
Shylock after Auschwitz......Page 315
13 Jewish Directors and Jewish Shylocks  in Twentieth-Century England......Page 317
From Fagin to Disraeli......Page 319
Hand-Rolled Cigarettes or a Cigar?......Page 324
“The villainy you teach me, I will execute”......Page 329
“I am a Jew”......Page 336
“The likeness of a Jew”......Page 342
Part IV Literature, Art, and Music......Page 343
14 Zionism in Ludwig Lewisohn’s novel,  The Last Days of Shylock (1931)......Page 345
15 Jessica’s Jewish Identity in Contemporary Feminist Novels......Page 363
The Merchant as Feminist Midrash......Page 367
The Tragic Daughter: Jessica in Shylock’s Daughter and The Turquoise Ring......Page 369
Daddy’s Girl and Feminist Heroine: Jessica in Serenissima and The Quality of Mercy......Page 373
Jessica in America......Page 382
16 Christian Iconography and Jewish Accommodation in Maurycy Gottlieb’s Painting, Shylock and Jessica......Page 385
Overture......Page 407
A Musical Voice for Shylock......Page 409
The Emergence of The Merchant of Venice as Opera......Page 413
Ciro Pinsuti, Il Mercante di Venezia (1873)......Page 415
Reynaldo Hahn, Le Marchand de Venise (1935)......Page 422
Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco, Il Mercante di Venezia/The Merchant of Venice (1956)......Page 431
Conclusion......Page 435
Part V Postscript......Page 437
18 Shylock and the Arab–Israeli Conflict......Page 439
Index......Page 450