One of my favourite things that I’ve done in Venice is the tour of the ghetto. Venice has the oldest, and original ghetto in the world. It’s a slightly misleading name now, ‘ghetto’ simply comes from the word ’getto’, meaning ‘iron foundries’, which is what was made on the little island in the middle of Venice that was given to the Jews. The first Jews to arrive were German, and unable to pronounce the ‘j’ sound of ‘getto’ so referred to it as ‘ghetto’, and the name stuck.

Venice, at the time, was one of the most tolerant societies. Founded on trade it was naturally multi-cultural and had enough power to disobey St Peter’s and welcome the Jews of Rome when they were thrown out of that city. Seen by Catholics as already damned, Jews could therefore be money lenders, a sinful profession, and they were welcomed into Venice as long as they performed associated money-related jobs, or were doctors or teachers.

They had to wear coloured hats indicating their profession when they left the ghetto, and were locked into the ghetto at night, with Christian guards, although this was mostly about their security rather than imprisonment and Venice and her Jewish community got on well, to the extent that when Napoleon invaded the city state it was the people of Venice that rallied to him to ‘free’ the Jews, and the gates of the ghetto were broken. During the holocaust Venice has one of the best survival rates for her Jewish population – the majority were smuggled out on boats or hidden, with only the elderly, children and infirm taken by the Nazis. Our tour guide said: ‘In Venice, we are Venetians and Jews second.’ I like the sentiment.

This is of course, a bit of a rosy picture. Jews couldn’t own property, resulting in the ghetto being the tallest part of Venice, for as their population grew they simply built upwards. Three of the magnificent synagogues are stacked in the same building. It is a remarkably small space for what was once such a large population. Relations weren’t always good with surrounding Venice, like the Catholic population, Venetian Jews have their own graveyard island, and the route there had to be changed after the coffins were abused and spat on by people on the bridges as the funeral boats passed underneath.

The wearing of coloured hats is a little too familiar a demarcation considering the use of the Star of David in the holocaust.

As a trader Shylock would have worked on a ‘banchi’ (guessed the word that derives from that? Bank!) a moneylenders bench by the Rialto bridge. If a money lender went bankrupt his bench would be broken, the banchi ruptured, and he could physically no longer operate there or anywhere else within the city. Picture the Jewish moneylender who’s lost his profession because a merchant didn’t pay up and could no longer work within one of the only cities in the world that would tolerate and not persecute him. Unless he requires medical or teaching skills there is no other job he is legally allowed to do within the city. It becomes a little clearer why Skylock was so desperate to make an example of Antonio. His entire life was gambled on each loan to a man that called

‘… me misbeliever, cut-throat dog,

And spet upon my Jewish gaberdine’

 As Antonio has probably spat upon the coffins of Shylock’s parents as they floated under the bridges.

Good old Shakespeare, understanding a world hundreds of years before his time and in Shylock creating a wonderful, understandable and righteous villain.

Here’s another gem from my tour guide: ‘Did Shakespeare ever visit Venice? Who knows in a city where everyone wears masks?’

‘To bait fish withal: if it will feed nothing else, it will feed my revenge. He hath disgraced me, and hindered me half a million; laughed at my losses, mocked at my gains, scorned my nation, thwarted my bargains, cooled my friends, heated mine enemies; and what's his reason? I am a Jew. Hath not a Jew eyes? hath not a Jew hands, organs, dimensions, senses, affections, passions? fed with the same food, hurt with the same weapons, subject to the same diseases, healed by the same means, warmed and cooled by the same winter and summer, as a Christian is? If you prick us, do we not bleed? if you tickle us, do we not laugh? if you poison us, do we not die? and if you wrong us, shall we not revenge? If we are like you in the rest, we will resemble you in that. If a Jew wrong a Christian, what is his humility? Revenge. If a Christian wrong a Jew, what should his sufferance be by Christian example? Why, revenge. The villany you teach me, I will execute, and it shall go hard but I will better the instruction.’