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“The Badge Of All Our Tribe”: Contradictions Of Jewish Representation On The English Renaissance Stage, Becky S. Friedman

Doctoral Dissertations

Literary and historical records fueled fantasies of intense difference between the Jews and Christians of early modern England. Representations of Jewishness in the Renaissance theater drew on many of these enduring pejorative fictions, which associated Jews with financial manipulation, corporeal abnormalities, and an innate predilection for iniquity. At the same time, depictions of stunningly beautiful Jewish women and sympathetic, relatable Jewish commoners also emerged on the stage, complicating centuries-old attitudes of antipathy with suggestions of fascination, compassion, and similitude. “The Badge of All Our Tribe”: Contradictions of Jewish Representation on the English Renaissance Stage sheds light on this broader spectrum …