Reading Shakespeare in Jewish Theological Frameworks: Shylock Beyond the Holocaust

245 Pages·2022·15.246 MB·English

by  Caroline Wiesenthal Lion

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“Anyone interested in Shakespeare’s engagement with scripture will,
I hope, be as thrilled as I am to read Caroline Lion’s account of The
Merchant of Venice. Her work is itself an epiphany for Jewish Shakespeare
studies. As a close reader Lion is intimate with God and pastorally sen-
sitive. I hope she continues to read and study— and tell us about— the
Hebrew Bible in Shakespeare.”
Rev. Dr Paul Edmondson, Head of Research, The Shakespeare
Birthplace Trust, UK, and The Church of England
“Caroline Lion invites us to see how The Merchant of Venice points
beyond the lethal racist and capitalist logic it otherwise dramatizes. An
unusual and imaginative, a hopeful and a timely book.”
Professor Ewan Fernie, The Shakespeare Institute,
University of Birmingham, UK
“A fresh and exciting examination of one of the most influential plays
ever written. Caroline Lion gives us an original analysis of The Merchant
of Venice from a Jewish theological perspective and brings us fascinating
new insights.”
Susannah Heschel, author of The Aryan Jesus: Christian
Theologians and the Bible in Nazi Germany
“In this original reappraisal of The Merchant of Venice, Caroline Lion
draws on Rabbinic debate, Kabbalistic tropes, biblical images, and
modern Jewish thought in order to shake up our preconceptions about
Shakespeare’s moral worlds. Practicing critical magnanimity, Lion seeks
moments of epiphany in which Shakespeare’s characters intuit horizons
of belonging that beckon in the intervals of interrupted sacrifice.”
Julia Reinhard Lupton, author of Shakespeare
Dwelling: Designs for the Theater of Life
“The literary heritage of the Jewish people (not for nothing known as ‘the
People of the Book’) has expounded on its sacred texts through commen-
taries and homiletical exposition (midrash) that often goes far beyond the
actual text. In this work, Caroline Lion continues this venerable tradition
in providing new insights and enriching exposition of a Shakespearean
classic, illuminating many aspects of the Jewish experience and the human
condition within and beyond the work itself.”
Rabbi David Rosen, KSG CBE, International Director
of Interreligious Affairs, AJC
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“Written with unmistakable intellectual passion and drawing on deep
learning in both criticism of the drama and Jewish theology, this volume
represents a highly original and valuable contribution to Shakespeare
studies.”
Professor Sir Stanley Wells, Honorary President,
The Shakespeare Birthplace Trust, UK
“From Freud to Derrida, ‘Jewish Shakespeare’ has reminded us that
‘what’s to come is still unsure’. In her deep meditation on Shylock and the
Shoah, Caroline challenges this perpetual adventism with the epiphany of
‘a good deed in a naughty world’. And as Lion shows, ‘How far that little
candle throws his beams!’ ”
Richard Wilson, author of Worldly Shakespeare:
The Theatre of Our Good Will
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Reading Shakespeare in Jewish
Theological Frameworks
Reading Shakespeare in Jewish Theological Frameworks: Shylock
Beyond the Holocaust uses Jewish theology to mount a courageous new
reading of a four- hundred- year- old play, The Merchant of Venice. While
victimhood and antisemitism have been the understandable focus of the
Merchant critical history for decades, Lion urges scholars, performers,
and readers to see beyond the racism in Shakespeare’s plays by recovering
Shakespearean themes of potentiality and human flourishing as they
emerge within the Jewish tradition itself. Lion joins the race conversa-
tion in Shakespeare studies today by drawing on the intellectual history
and oppression of the Jewish people, borrowing from thinkers Franz
Rosenzweig and Abraham Joshua Heschel as well as Hannah Arendt,
Walter Benjamin, Jacques Derrida, Emmanuel Levinas, and rabbis from the
Talmud to today. This volume interweaves post-c onfessional, Protestant,
Catholic, Muslim, Jewish, and mystical ideas with Shakespeare’s poetry
and opens conversations of prophecy, love, spirituality, care, and com-
munity. It concludes with brief critical sketches of Antony and Cleopatra,
Hamlet, and Macbeth to demonstrate that Shakespeare when interpreted
through Jewish theological frameworks can point to post-c redal solutions
and transformed societal paradigms of repair that encourage action and
the shaping of a finer world.
Caroline Wiesenthal Lion is a research associate at the New Swan
Shakespeare Center, the University of California, Irvine. She has taught
at and/ or received faculty and research grants from Rogue Community
College (Oregon), Southern Oregon University, and the University of
Birmingham, UK. She holds a Ph.D. from the Shakespeare Institute,
University of Birmingham. In the past, graduate studies at the Tisch
School at New York University in Dramatic Writing brought her to the
award- winning Magic Theater of San Francisco where she served as the
literary manager. She has been rabbinically trained at the Academy for
Jewish Religion (California), ALEPH, and the Conservative Yeshiva in
Jerusalem. She has received notable endorsements for her fiction, her rab-
binic teachings have been published, and her plays produced. The widow
of John Lion, founder of the Magic Theater, she is most proud of their
four talented children.
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Reading Shakespeare
in Jewish Theological
Frameworks
Shylock Beyond the Holocaust
Caroline Wiesenthal Lion
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First published 2023
by Routledge
605 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10158
and by Routledge
4 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon, OX14 4RN
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an Informa business
© 2023 Caroline Wiesenthal Lion
The right of Caroline Wiesenthal Lion to be identified as author of this work
has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright,
Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilized
in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or
hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information
storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.
Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks,
and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe.
Library of Congress Cataloging- in- Publication Data
A catalog record for this title has been requested
ISBN: 978- 1- 032- 12137- 6 (hbk)
ISBN: 978- 1- 032- 12139- 0 (pbk)
ISBN: 978- 1- 003- 22326- 9 (ebk)
DOI: 10.4324/ 9781003223269
Typeset in Sabon
by Newgen Publishing UK
vii
Contents
A Note on Shakespeare References viii
A Note on the Transliteration of Hebrew Words ix
Acknowledgments x
Opening Thoughts xiv
Foreword xv
Introduction: Antisemitism and Epiphany 1
1 Shylock: The Imprint of the Path 43
2 Lorenzo: Braving the ‘Perhaps’ 71
3 Antonio: The Imprint of the Path 92
4 Portia: Love or Pretense 119
5 Jessica: The Courage of the ‘Gift’ 144
Conclusion: The Trial and the Rings 161
Further Thoughts: Jewish Theological Frameworks
Beyond Shylock 182
Bibliography 200
Index 215
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A Note on Shakespeare References
In this book, quotations from The Merchant of Venice are from the Arden
Shakespeare Third Series, ed. John Drakakis (London: Bloomsbury, 2011).
xi
A Note on the Transliteration of
Hebrew Words
1. Transliterations are as close as possible to the Hebrew pronunciation.
2. I am not following any established school of thought concerning
transliterations. My goal is consistency and accuracy of sound.
3. The chet is written as an h sound. This holds unless the transliter-
ation is spelled differently in Webster’s Dictionary or a citation.
4. Transliterations are italicized if they are not in Webster’s Dictionary.
Midrash, for example, is not italicized. You can see Webster’s defin-
ition here: www.merr iam- webs ter.com/ dic tion ary/ midr ash.
5. This book quotes from the Hebrew Bible to illuminate parts of The
Merchant of Venice. I will quote the Hebrew, with a translation,
when the English language feels like it does not quite capture the
essence of the Hebrew passage. Otherwise, I will use transliterations
or translations.