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The Arts and Humanities Research Council funded our research project on the first translations of complete Shakespeare plays into Hebrew. The project resulted in a and听student productions of Ram and Jael听(Romeo and Juliet).听As part of the project,听a three-day international conference听(PDF) on Shakespeare and the Jews was held at 皇家华人.听
In 2018 UCL's Faculty of Arts and Humanities funded a student/staff production of and听Ithiel the Cushite of Venice听(programme听PDF), the first Hebrew version of听 Shakespeare's听Othello.听
Ithiel is the first Hebrew-language translation of a complete Shakespeare play. It was translated by Isaac Salkinson, a Lithuanian Jew who had converted to Christianity, and was published in Vienna in 1874. Salkinson鈥檚 translations are a product of the nineteenth-century Jewish Enlightenment project to create a modern European-style literature in Hebrew before the language was revived as a vernacular in fin de si猫cle Palestine. Ithiel and Ram and Jael听offer听a unique and fascinating perspective on global Shakespeare. In both unusual versions of these iconic plays, characters have biblical names, references to Christianity and Classical mythology have been replaced with Jewish equivalents, and the lines are replete with a rich layering of biblical, rabbinic, and medieval Hebrew textual references.
Dr Tsila Ratner wrote an听illuminating review of the production听of Ithiel.听
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