1.
The Anti-Jewish Tradition on the English Stage
The Anti-Jewish tradition on the English Stage has its roots in the New Testament Mystery or Miracle Plays produced after the expulsion of the Jews from England in 1290. During the reign of Queen Elizabeth, a number of plays by Gosson, Wilson, and Greene delineated the Jew in an unfavorable light. Christopher Marlowe, in his notorious play, “The Rich Jew of Malta” depicted a character, Barabas by name, and Shakespeare in “The Merchant of Venice” created the Jew Shylock, both of whom fixed the standard for representations of the Jew on the stage for many generations. Whatever may have been the motive of the playwright, the fact that in the story on which Shakespeare built his play, the original Shylock was a Christian who demanded his pound of flesh from a
3
