FLOODESIGN

Shakespeare's England had little to no Jewish population. Their families had been expelled in 1290 by a royal decree, after two centuries of persecution. They were expelled from France in 1394, from Spain in 1492 1 . We know that Shakespeare wrote "The Merchant of Venice" in the late 1500s, around the time that Roderigo Lopez, Queen Elizabeth's doctor and one of the few remaining Jews in London, was executed on false charges. The story of the money-lending Jew tricked out of his high-interest loan (something of a trope at the time) had to be set in Venice, the trading center of the Mediterranean; there, Jews were allowed to reside, practice their faith and enjoy the protection of the state, as long as they lived in a separate area — named "ghetto," after the Venetian word for foundry — which could be closed off with gates and moats in the evening. When outside the ghetto, they had to wear marked clothing. Barred from owning land or joining guilds, they derived their income from selling secondhand items and lending money at interest. In context, this was both extraordinary liberalism and demonstration of phenomenal power of the state. No one had it very good in medieval Europe, a continent constantly succumbing to epidemics, wars, failed harvests. Venice — a city-state with limited citizen democracy, functioning police and fire-fighting services, special regulations and taxes for each minority, even an ability to guarantee safety to Jews — was a pinnacle of order. Comedy necessitates the rule of law. The Jewish ghetto of Venice. Photo by DEA / G. SOSIO/De Agostini/Getty Images 12 www.peakperfs.org WHAT THEATER CAN DO B Y J A N A P E R K O V I C ´

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