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Cem Gltekin Erin Hallahan English B 21 October 2011 Who Is The Culprit? In history Jews are almost homeless after the immigration from their first homeland, the land of Canaan (the place of modern Israel) in BC. 1400. Their history begins with a desertion from Egypt where they had come a century ago under the management of Jacob, escaping under the leadership of Moses after a legendary riot, and almost ends with rise of modern Israel. Despite of their rooted background, Judaism could not spread to further races and this is the clue of the catch, why they were such apart and why Christians hated Jews so much till twentieth century. This will show us what really effected on the manners of Antonio (the rich merchant from the play of Shakespeare, The Merchant of Venice) and Shylock (the suffered Jew practicing usury from the same play). In the play, we are facing with anti-Semitist Antonio who is mocking and disrespecting to Shylock for some reasons we do not know. But he is an ordinary religious Christian example for Middle Age. The fundamentals of the hostility is rooted to death of Jesus, the Jesus who is believed to be the savior of all the Christians; he was killed by Jews lived in Jerusalem. Furthermore Jews are denying Jesus as a prophet whereas Christians believe that he was the Messiah who is mentioned in the Jewish Bible. After the spread of Christianity, Jews became the scapegoats and were separated from others. They were restricted from possession rights in 4th century by Emperor Julian the Apostate, expelled from manorial lords castles, and had apart rules from others. The only way to survive in such a lethal world of Middle Age Europe was to live in cities, living as craftsmen or merchants or

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servants. Cities were not under control of manorial lords but the king and Jews were kept under the control of kings owing to their crucial services; financial, administrative and as doctors. But the protection was cut when Holy Crusades fought against Jews in Jerusalem, the lower life conditions of Jews around the world was lowered under the potent of church. The kings and bishops of Spain, Austria, France, England and Portugal expelled hundreds of thousands Jews from 11th century to 16th century. Finally in the 16th century they found security in Poland. Those years are when the play takes place in, Jews were practicing usury (benefiting from the restrictions on money lending for Christians), living an alien life in their dwelling hometowns. Besides these anti-Semitist actions Jews constructed their own defensing community structure by the time and supported it with a few ideas rendered from the history and their Bible. Jews believe that Jewry was sent just for them, for the selected superior race. Therefore they always lived in a structure of closed minority communities during the Middle Age Europe in order to provide solidarity and a protection for their culture and worships. That is another covert reason of the conflicts. Especially around the beginning of 20th century, the years when the racist ideas reached to their most grown point owing to the Jewish unfettered scientists and writers in US, 2 millions of Jews were expelled from Russia by public force despite of all struggles of the government. Forcing Jews to stay apart from others caused them to be more defensive and aggressive as Shylock is and caused a conflict between Christian publics and Jews. Shylock has a deep self-respect and he cannot stand being mocked about his religion or culture. He is mostly angry for Antonio mocking him just because he is a Jew. We learn that Shylock loses his wife before he loses his daughter and perhaps that because he has none to be friend and that may be why he cannot listen derogatory words; his honor, and religion

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might be having filled the space in him. He may be last man who ought to come across with Antonio that he must be elaborately created for the play to be more like tragedy. He is provoked by the religious sentiments, by escape of his daughter to a Christian and may be provoked by a request for revenge that coming from rooted history of anti-Semitism. By this means Shakespeare makes reader get into the deep feelings of Shylock especially when Shylock tells about the fact that both Jews and Christians are human beings and he does not deserve to be treated like that, so nobody can directly say that yes, he is the evil.Yes, he does not behave in principles of a Jewry, tries to kill a man-it is one of the things what Jewry orders not to do- yet we know that anybody who is in the same circumstances, maybe even the best Jew around the world, would do the same things. Antonio is a rich merchant who seems to be religious indeed, because he wants Shylock to be Christian rather than taking his money or his life. He may be a character lacking of ambitions and that gives a possibility that he sacrifices himself with religious and anti-Semitist sentiments based some crucial events. He may treat to Jews as how he feels himself obliged so far as what he learned about Christianity before. But even if Antonio is not a Jew-lover, out of exposition there is no anti-Semitist treat appeared in his behaviors; he seems to be a sinless and gracious man corded to religious principles, not a man who is humiliating Shylock who is living a great agony. According to only events happening in the play, Antonio does what any Christian can do as the best for these days. It was an era when great banishments exceeding hundreds of thousands of Jews, separated ghettos, usage of identifying red hats, and inhibitions for possessions and marriages took place in Europe against Jews. Both characters, both sides have reasons which are logical from side of each one. Dogmatic believes provoked people bounded to their religions and made chaos lasting for

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thousands of years, tortures, genocides, punishments, destructions and revenge attacks. Antonio versus Shylock is not such a boyish fight consisting of an evil and an angle sides, yet consisting of deductive reasons in manners rooted to religions and histories. Both characters are culprit, yet not as much as Jewish ancestors who constructed the closed racist structure of Jewish community and Christian ancestors who accused all the Jewish posterities of the death of Jesus. For an age included a military war between Holy Crusades and Jews, it is a normal disrespect and anger which Antonio and Shylock show and has many dogmatic reasons based on events and exegesis lasted from thousands of years before.

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Works Cited Weins, Berel. "The Egyptian Holocaust." Jewish History - We Bring Jewish History to Life. Trans. Yaakor Astor. Destiny Foundation, 14 Aug. 2004. Web. 20 Oct. 2011.

<http://www.jewishhistory.org/the-egyptian-holocaust/>. Weins, Berel. "End of the Geonic Era." Jewish History - We Bring Jewish History to Life.Trans. Yaakov Astor. Destiny Foundation, 14 Aug. 2004. Web. 20 Oct. 2011.

<http://www.jewishhistory.org/end-of-the-geonic-era/>. Weins, Berel. "The Times of the Roman War." Jewish History - We Bring Jewish History to Life. Trans. Yaakon Astor. Destiny Foundation, 14 Aug. 2004. Web. 20 Oct. 2011. <http://www.jewishhistory.org/the-times-of-the-roman-war/>. Weins, Berel. "Destruction of The First Temple." Jewish History - We Bring Jewish History to Life. Trans. Yaakov Astor. Destiny Foundation, 14 Aug. 2004. Web. 20 Oct. 2011. <http://www.jewishhistory.org/destruction-of-the-first-temple/>. "Judaism." Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia. Web. 20 Oct. 2011. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judaism>. "BBC - Religions - Judaism: Jewish Beliefs." BBC - Homepage. BBC, 14 Oct. 2009. Web. 20 Oct. 2011. <http://www.bbc.co.uk/religion/religions/judaism/beliefs/beliefs_1.shtml>. Lawton, Clive. "BBC - Religions - Judaism: Jesus through Jewish Eyes." BBC - Homepage. BBC, 23 June 2009. Web. 20 Oct. 2011. <http://www.bbc.co.uk/religion/religions/judaism/beliefs/eyes_1.shtml>.

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"BBC - Religions - Judaism: History of Judaism." BBC - Homepage. BBC, 01 July 2009. Web. 20 Oct.2011. <http://www.bbc.co.uk/religion/religions/judaism/history/history_1.shtml>. Antisemitism." Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia. Web. 20 Oct. 2011. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antisemitism>. "Antisemitism." United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. Web. 20 Oct. 2011. <http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10005175>.