Prejudice And Discrimination Of Jews In Shakespeare's The Merchant Of Venice

Jews were not only treated poorly during Shakespeare’s time, but also before he was born. In England and Italy, Jews were mistreated because of their beliefs, and in many cases they had to go through a lot of religious prejudice and discrimination. One example of this is when King Edward I issued an order called the Edict of Expulsion on July 18, 1290. This stated that all Jews had to leave England in less than three months. The same day the Edict was proclaimed, letters were sent to most counties telling all Jews they had until November 1 to leave. Any Jews that were left after this date were allowed to be captured and killed (Ross). Before this was proclaimed, “English Kings saw Jewish moneylenders as a convenient source of funds” (Ross). This meant that many Kings borrowed heavily from them and they couldn’t do anything because they were treated as less than human because of their religion. However, Jews were given special protection under the law and were to be declared direct subjects of the

An example of this is how Venice forced them to live in Jewish Ghettos. On March 29, 1516, the first Jewish Ghetto was created in Venice. It was one of the first places where people were forcibly segregated because of their religious difference (Laskin). The Ghetto still stands for more than 500 years now, but it is uninhabited. However, unlike England in the late 1200’s, Venice partially accepted the Jews, even if it was by ghettoizing them (Worrall). This made them less anti-semitic than other countries at the time, even if they still treated Jews poorly. In is unknown whether Shakespeare visited Venice or the Ghetto before he wrote and published The Merchant of Venice, but he must have heard of it (Worrall). The relationship between Shylock and the other characters could be based on an understanding of the new social system created by the