Der Shylock von Krakau (1913)

The story is partly based on William Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice and is set in Galicia at the beginning of the 20th century. The moneylender Isaak Levi leads the life of a devout Jew in Kraków. He observes Jewish customs and laws and raises his two daughters, Rahel and Miriam, accordingly. All the more devastating, then, when one of his daughters begins a relationship with a man who is nothing like what he would want for a pious Jew. The relationship between father and daughter threatens to fall apart when she runs away with her lover, to whom Isaak has lent money. Isaak sees this as an extraordinarily severe test of his faith and traditions, and begins to struggle bitterly with God and the world. Over the years, he grows hard-hearted and cold, and his customers feel the brunt of his anger at life as well. A great deal of time has passed when the daughter realizes what her decision has done to her deeply religious father and asks his forgiveness. At his deathbed, the once-lost daughter, now returned home, and her embittered father are reconciled.