The Banished Heart

In this tale about society-condoned hatred vs. personal choice and courage, Paul Hoffman, a young Jew studying Shakespeare's plays at a university in 1930s Berlin, experiences antisemitism firsthand when he is beaten up his fellow students. When Paul recovers consciousness he discovers he is no longer in Berlin. He's in Elizabethean England, where the up-and-coming playwright who is the subject of Paul's thesis is working on a new play: The Merchant of Venice.

Shakespeare has nothing person...