Shakespeare

The Merchant of Venice and Huckleberry Finn

     There can be little doubt that that childish idiot Shakespeare (1654-1616) made a major contribution to the persecution of the European Jews when he wrote his contemptible play, “The Merchant of Venice.” This play was Hitler’s favorite, as can well be understood by reading it or seeing it performed. More recently, this anti-Jewish hate propaganda was made into a movie in 2004. Here the actor Al Pacino displays his talent as an agent of hate in the most effective manner now possible. On the stage, the play is not nearly as effective as in a film, because stage plays have a far smaller audience than the movies and because the play clearly refers to conditions common in the late Middle Ages.

     Yet, movies are always contemporary. Therefore the audience seeing the Merchant of Venice in a movie theater can hardly be expected to be historians capable of interpreting its historical content. In short, this movie incites its viewers against their Jewish neighbors.

     If the Jewish community had any self respect, large numbers of Jews, and particularly our “major” Jewish organizations, would have made the same loud objections to this effort to once more demonize Jews as they always do when the “civil rights” of other people are involved. Instead, we find Jewish actors playing Shylock, the despicable Jew who is money mad, revengeful, bloodthirsty, ugly, cruel and filthy. Every malicious canard ever leveled against Jews since the second century by Barnabas and continued throughout the ages is found repeated in “The Merchant of Venice.”

     These hate messages, together with innumerable other forms of hate repeated in novels, plays, sermons, and media of every kind, led to the slaughter of my family and six million Jews in the European gas ovens. Yet “The Merchant of Venice” is constantly directed by Jewish directors and attended by Jewish audiences. Evidently, our self immolation is viewed as the mark of  being “liberal” by the same people who are voting for those seeking to destroy Israel now.

      Contrast this lemming like conduct to the Jewish aggressiveness concerning the “N” word. In 2011, New South Books published an altered edition of “Mark Twain’s” i.e.  Samuel Clemens (1835-1910) famous book The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. This altered edition substitutes the word “nigger,” which Clemens used incessantly, with the word “slave.” The reason for this change was the belief that the “N” word is insulting and humiliating and that such language contributes to the discrimination suffered by our African American population, such as Barack Obama.

     Yet, no one objects when Jews are defamed and grossly demeaned. For example, in 1995 the “civil rights” leader Al Sharpton shouted outside “Freddie's Fashion Mart” in Brooklyn, “burn down the Jew store.” His followers promptly did so and seven employees died in the fire. Yet, Sharpton continues to be a hero in the Jewish “liberal”  community.   

     The least we can do therefore is to demand that those who want to continue producing “The Merchant of Venice” make Shylock a Christian and all other characters in that play Jews. Then Shylock will at the end have to convert to Judaism instead of the present content, which disgusts any Jew with even a modicum of self respect.

Shalom u’vracha.

Dr. Gerhard Falk is the author of numerous publications, including The American Criminal Justice System (2010).

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