Anti -Semitic or uncultivated? “No death tax. No tax on successions. No need to go see the banks and borrow from some cases a good banker and, in some cases, of Shylocks and bad people, “said US President Donald Trump on Thursday during an Iowa meeting.
Except that “Shylock” is not a trivial word, largely connoted for its anti -Semitic meaning. However, questioned later on his plane descend on the use of this word, Donald Trump played the astonishment: “The sense of the term Shylock is someone who lends money at high rates. You see it differently. I have never heard that, ”he said.
A lasting incarnation of anti -Semitic prejudices
The word “Shylock” has its origin in a famous character in Shakespeare’s play “Le Marchand de Venise”. The bad Shylock, a rich Jewish usurier, has since become one of the most sustainable incarnations of anti -Semitic prejudices. Moreover, according to the British actress of Jewish confession Tracy-Ann Oberman, “this play […] was one of Hitler’s favorites. ” Today, the term “Shylock” has also become a synonym of “business shark”.
In 2014, Joe Biden, who was then only vice-president, had to apologize for employing the same term, recognizing “an unhappy choice of words”. Abraham Foxman, Director of Anti-Deformation League, an organization of fighting anti-Semitism, had denounced a “stereotype on the Jews deeply rooted in society” at the time.
Our file on anti -Semitism
In September, before his election, Donald Trump promised to face “the horrible wave of anti-Semitic and pro-Hamas” in the United States, presenting himself as a “defender, protector” of American Jews. Since then, his administration has led a battle against universities accused of having allowed pro-Palestinian demonstrations on their campus.
