I just want to comment on the issue of "Shylock's humanizing speech." Today, we see the speech as humanizing, but it was not perceived as such when Shakespeare wrote it. Shylock was the villain of the piece, and it was a comedy, not a tragedy, up until one particular actor portrayed Shylock sympathetically. After that, many began to perceive him as sympathetic, and as a tragic hero. Shakespeare typically wrote in iambic pentameter for the more elevated, profound parts. Portia's courtroom monologue, "The quality of mercy is not strained... etc." is in iambic pentameter, for example. But Shylock's "Hath not a Jew eyes..." etc. is not in iambic pentameter, and it can easily be seen as a villain manipulating the good hereoes of the novel into initially thinking he's a good guy, only to twist that initial sympathy into furthering Jewish bloodlust (..."and if he is wronged, shall he not revenge?") Many mistakenly think the merchant of the title is him. But it's not--it's Antonio. So there would be no difficulty in Nazi Germany to portray Shylock as the villain. It's all there in the text.