Shakespear: Anti Semantic

Anti-Jewish or Anti Semitic or Neither – The Merchant of Venice
William Shakespeare, having spent most of his youth in England, was influenced by England’s beliefs. England was going through a Christian reformation that had caused friction between Christians and Jews. Jews and Christians did not see eye to eye on most everything and especially on usury, the practice of lending money with interest. Boyce, a Shakespearean critique, sums up the negative attitude that Christians had on Jews in the 16th Century:
“Sixteenth-Century Englishmen tended to attribute to Jews only two important characteristics, both negative: first, that Jews detested Christians and gave much energy to devising evils for gentiles to undergo, and second, that Jews practiced usury. The latter assumption was grounded in an old reluctance on the part of Christians to lend money [with interest]” (Boyce 417).
William Shakespeare shoes his anti-Jewish attitude by condemning the practice of usury in T...