Shylock as Heroic Figure

“In the first half of the twentieth century, ‘The Merchant of Venice’ in Yiddish translation was probably one of the most popular productions on the flourishing Yiddish stage. Jacob Adler’s performance of Shylock was so impressive that he played Shylock in Yiddish on Broadway, with an English-speaking cast. Shakespeare, as Adler understood, was not presenting a stereotype. Shylock was a heroic figure: a Jew who boldly stood up to anti-Semites, impugning their prejudices, and challenged all the forces of the state.”
–Reconsidering the Shylock problem.