Primrose Road

Ha'aretz reports that nine students at an Orthodox Jewish girls' high school in London refused to answer questions about The Tempest on a national exam in protest of the fact that Shakespeare wrote The Merchant of Venice.

No, not in protest of their being made to read Merchant. They weren't.
Not in protest of any high school students being made to read Merchant. It was part of neither the curriculum nor the test.

The editorial in Ha'aretz rightly expresses concern that the girls' parents and school principal are supporting their "protest," where "instead of embodying the very Jewish virtues of academic inquisitiveness, and a thirst for knowledge, [the principal] has given his tacit approval to a dangerously blinkered approach."

These girls haven't read the play. Had they read it, they would have seen that it's hardly anti-Semitic; the Shylock plot is basically about a father who is outraged that his only daughter left his house, stole his money, sold her dead mother's ring for a monkey, and converted to Christianity. Had they read the play, they might have noticed that early on, the "flesh bond" is just a joke of sorts between Shylock and Antonio. Shylock only demands to collect a pound of flesh when his "flesh and blood," his daughter Jessica, leaves him. He's an outraged father who has endured years of oppression at the hands of the Venetian Christians.

And, by the way, early 20th-century Jews, especially those involved in the Yiddish theater, adored Shylock. From Jacob Adler to Avrom Morevski to Maurice Schwartz, Yiddish actors and writers were never afraid to sympathize with Shylock. There is also available a translation of the Hebrew novel on which Schwartz's Shylock play is based; if you're interested in the Jewish reception of Merchant, it's definitely worth checking out.

(Hat tip to Shakespeare Geek for the "protest" story.)