To those unacquainted with the evidence, few subjects will appear as unpromising as a Jewish William Shakespeare. However, most curiously, the finding of strictly Judaic elements in his plays reveals the Bard's knowledge of Talmud, Midrash, and Aggadah, literatures all but unavailable in the England of his time -- Jews having long been expelled.
While skeptics may reject the diagnostic worth of even some Judaica in the work of a medieval author who has demonstrated a prodigious catholic reach, its presence, easily confirmed, poses a major challenge to scholarship. Why has this content been little accounted in earlier study? Where did Shakespeare gain access to this literature? Does it appear in patterned ways, revelatory of its author? These are among the questions assayed here.
Exhibit A of the evidence presents a sampling of Shakespeare's use of talmudic materials. Some are the easily identified lines, such as "What's mine is yours and what is yours is mine," and "Sin will pluck on sin," appearing respectively in Measure for Measure and Richard III. While both lines are drawn from the Talmud's Pirke Avoth, their simplicity is such to make them suspect. But, when it is learned that the continuation of the talmudic line on "Sin plucks etc," which runs to "sechar mitzvah mitzvah" ("the reward of the deed is the deed") is to be found in Coriolanus in praise of Marcius, a man who "rewards his deeds with doing them," it becomes evident that the Bard had rendered this talmudic line in full. Note here, we are actually given a "drash" (an interpretation) of this phrase and not merely its translation, because one meaning of the line is that the deed of the "mitzvah" is its own reward.
And lest it be believed that Shakespeare restricted himself to Pirke Avoth, of which there were some Latin translations, we find -- among numerous other examples -- one of Shakespeare's characters reciting for us the five categories of penalty called for by the Talmud for injuring another. Also to be found in one of his plays, when understood, is his version of the traditional Purimshpiel (Purim play) in which all is "lehephech," opposite.
Concerning direct historic evidence, Exhibit B reveals that Shakespeare's father was left a legacy in which his last name was given as "Shakere." The historian who brought this news failed to recognize the implication that this name, in Hebrew, has a meaning suggesting a crypto-Jew. Thus, "shakere" appears in the Hebrew of the Ninth Commandment where it means "false" -- as surely a Jew who witnessed falsely as a Christian must have been.
Have we here more circumstantial evidence ultimately signifying nothing? Once again, the skeptic will find no sanctuary. For Exhibit C clearly demonstrates that Shakespeare knew its meaning and portent since he found ways to interject his name as "Shakere" into some of his immortal plays in modes revelatory and reminiscent of the practice of the authors of medieval Hebrew prayers.
Finally, Exhibit D is Shakespeare's 1596 Coat of Arms, the application for which, extant, includes a tell-tale sketch and motto. Not only does this confirm the Bard's attachment to what must be called his family name, but reveals him as defining himself as a son of Abraham Isaac, and Jacob, and much, much more, to be revealed in the new book, among which is new evidence never before reported that he did play a part in the writing of the Kings James Version of the Bible.
The trail of these Judaic signs, left as clues by the greatest of communicators, has awaited plumbing by those persons who retain possession of the Jewish religious culture known to him.