Like others, Trump trips over Shakespeare’s Shylock

Oops, he stepped in it again.

Again, through ignorance.

“He” is President Donald J. Trump, and the “it” was an offhand remark made Thursday night during an Iowa rally. Talking about unscrupulous bankers, he used the term “Shylock,” which many Jews consider to be anti-Semitic.

“I think today, it’s a term used primarily based on ignorance,” said Abe Foxman, the former director of the Anti-Defamation League.

The mini-drama drew me back to the late ‘80s, when Frank L. Rizzo, running for mayor against Wilson Goode, used the term “Shylock.”

When I got him on the phone — which was easy for reporters to do, very much unlike with politicians today — and explained the history of the term and its connection with anti-Semitism, Rizzo was flabbergasted. Literally shocked.

After graduating from South Philadelphia High School in 1938, Rizzo went into the U.S. Navy. 

In neither place was he exposed to William Shakespeare’s “The Merchant of Venice,” in which the villain is a Jewish money lender named Shylock who demands “a pound of flesh” from another character unable to pay a loan.

That character, and other lines, have led to a continuing debate about whether Shakespeare was an anti-Semite. 

Rizzo had never heard about the nature of Shylock, and literally sputtered that some of his closest allies were Jews, most notably Marty Weinberg, whom he named city solicitor. Another highly prominent Jewish supporter was Lynne Abraham, a one-time “tough cookie” district attorney, and later a judge.

Shylock “continues to be seen by Jews as an anti-Semitic term,” said Foxman, “regardless of how you use it. The president of the United States should know better.”

Should, could, would.

He doesn’t.

He has a history of not knowing things, such as Constitutional guard rails, or ignoring facts that contradict his belief system.

I have defended Trump many times against the spurious charge of him being an anti-Semite.

An anti-Semite does not allow his daughter to convert to Judaism and marry an Orthodox Jew, whom he then names as a top presidential advisor.

An anti-Semite does not love his Jewish grandchildren, nor move the United States embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv, to Jerusalem, which is Israel’s capital. Nor battle perceived anti-Semitism on university campuses.

Here is the context of Trump’s remarks: “No death tax. No estate tax. No going to the banks and borrowing from, in some cases, a fine banker — and in some cases, Shylocks and bad people.” After criticism emerged, Trump said he was unaware of the anti-Semitism some attach to the term.

“I’ve never heard it that way,” he told reporters on Friday. “The meaning of Shylock is somebody that’s a moneylender at high rates. You view it differently. I’ve never heard that.”

Joe Biden in 2014 also used the word in connection with loan officers who forced military members into foreclosure. “I mean, those Shylocks who took advantage of these men and women while overseas,” Biden said.

He later apologized.

Trump probably won’t, because he never does.

If you take me to be saying ignorance is an excuse — yes, I am. For Frank Rizzo, for Donald Trump, and for Joe Biden.