The Jew

The Jew is a comedy written by playwright Richard Cumberland and first presented at the Drury Lane Theatre in London in May 1794. The play is notable as the first play in the English theatre to portray a Jewish moneylender as the hero of a stage production. An adaptation of the original play along with a facsimile copy of The Jew was published in 2012 as Sheva, the Benevolent.

This article is about the 1794 play. For other uses, see Jew (disambiguation).

Illustration from an 1825 printing of Richard Cumberland's The Jew.

The anti-Jewish tradition on the English stage dates back at least to the expulsion of the Jews from England in 1290 and is exemplified by the characters of Shylock in William Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice and Barabas in Christopher Marlowe's The Jew of Malta. In a series of articles called Observer, first published in 1785, Cumberland created a character named Abraham Abrahams who would later serve as a template for Sheva, the title character in The Jew. In one instalment of Observer, Abrahams is quoted as saying, "I verily believe the odious character of Shylock has brought little less persecution upon us, poor scattered sons of Abraham, than the Inquisition itself."[1] A decade later, in writing The Jew, Cumberland sought to create a positive image of a Jewish man that would counteract centuries of anti-Semitic portraits. The tremendous success of the initial production prompted Cumberland to later write, "The benevolence of the audience assisted me in rescuing a forlorn and persecuted character, which till then had only been brought upon the stage for the unmanly purpose of being made a spectacle of contempt, and a butt for ridicule. In the success of this comedy I felt of course a greater gratification, than I had ever felt upon a like occasion."[2]

Shortly after its London premiere, the play began to be performed in the United States, first in Boston, Philadelphia, and New York City and, later, in Richmond, Charleston, and many other cities and towns. The play was also translated into numerous languages including German, French, Hebrew, Yiddish, and Russian. The last known New York production under its original title was presented at the Bronx Free Synagogue in 1919.

Plot

Charles, a young clerk employed in the counting house of the merchant Sir Stephen Bertram is fired because his sister Eliza is romantically involved with Sir Stephen's son, Frederick (who is also Charles's best friend). Unknown to both Sir Stephen and Charles, Frederick and Eliza have already been secretly married. To help his now unemployed friend financially, Frederick seeks to borrow money from a Jewish moneylender named Sheva, whom Frederick assumes is a merciless and stingy miser. Sheva is actually a very kind man and a sympathetic listener. When he realises that Charles is the son of "Don Carlos," a soldier who once rescued him from an angry mob in Cadiz, Spain, he decides to give Frederick the money to help his friend, and secretly invests money in Eliza's name to demonstrate to Sir Stephen that Eliza is a worthy wife for his son. Charles, however, is stubbornly proud and, when he learns that Frederick has secretly married his sister, he challenges his friend to a duel. Their sword fight ends quickly when Charles receives a minor cut on his wrist and, after the truth about Sheva's generous gift is revealed, everything ends happily.

Characters
  • Sheva – A moneylender who hides his benevolence beneath the mask of a miser
  • Sir Stephen Bertram – A British merchant
  • Frederick Bertram – Sir Stephen's son
  • Saunders – Sir Stephen's assistant
  • Charles Ratcliffe – A clerk in Sir Stephen's counting-house
  • Elizabeth (Eliza) Ratcliffe – Sister to Charles and wife to Frederick
  • Mrs. Ratcliffe – Mother to Charles and Eliza
  • Dorcas – A Jewish woman, servant to Sheva and mother to Jabal/Jacob
  • Jabal – A young Jewish boy, very thin and always hungry (renamed Jacob in Sheva, the Benevolent)
  • Mrs. Goodison – A neighbour and friend to Sheva
  • Waiter – A waiter in a local tavern (changed to a Serving Girl in Sheva, the Benevolent)
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References
  1. Newman, Louis I. (2012). Richard Cumberland: Critic and Friend of the Jews (Classic Reprint). Forgotten Books.
  2. Cumberland, Richard (1807). Memoirs of Richard Cumberland. New York: B. Blom.
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