The fact that Shylock is simply described as ‘the Jew’, just shows the level of respect that the Jews, or anything to do with the Jewish religion had during that time. I know this because, rather than calling him by his first name, they call him ‘the Jew’, which shows they are attempting to put him down and make others think that the Jews in Venice are not as good as the Christians. This lead to the Jews being put to one side away from the rest of society, during this time it was the first time you heard the use of the word ‘ghetto’, which was used to describe the area that all the Jews were living in. Another piece evidence to suggest this is, that when Jews were going into the city they would receive a lot of abuse from the other people in Venice. You can see this happening during the opening scene of the film version of The Merchant of Venice, where you see  Christians from Venice spitting at Jews who were in the busy bits of Venice. You could also see people burning Torah’s, the Jewish holy book, which in my opinion is the highest level of disrespect you can show to any member of the Jewish community.