The Merchant of Venice be a "happy ending" for the character, as, to a Christian audience, it saves his soul and allows him to enter Heaven. Regardless of what Shakespeare's authorial intent may have been, the play has been made use of by antisemites throughout the play's history. The Nazis used the usurious Shylock for their propaganda. Shortly after Kristallnacht in 1938, "The Merchant of Venice" was broadcast for propagandistic ends over the German airwaves. Productions of the play followed in Lübeck (1938), Berlin (1940), and elsewhere within the Nazi territory. In a series of articles called "Observer", first published in 1785, British playwright
Jessica (given name) Jessica (given name) Jessica (originally Iessica, also Jesica, Jesika, Jessicah, Jessika, or Jessikah) is a female given name. The oldest written record of the name with its current spelling is found as the name of the Shakespearean character Jessica, from the play "The Merchant of Venice". The name may have been an Anglicisation of the biblical Iscah (from the Hebrew: יִסְכָּה : yiskāh), the name of a daughter of Haran briefly mentioned in the Book of Genesis 11:29. Iscah was rendered "Iesca" (Jeska) in the Matthew Bible version available in Shakespeare's day. The original Hebrew name "Yiskāh", means "foresight", or