Right. There's a parallel between JoM and Merchant in that Shylock's daughter (Jessica) abandons him and his faith to be with a Christian man. Shylock mourns this deeply but -- notably -- does not kill her. In JoM, Barabas's daughter (Abigail) is also in love with a Christian man without Barabas knowing it, and it is Barabas himself who talks her into joining the convent (to reclaim gold he'd hidden within), and when he learns that she has converted (which happens after her Christian lover dies, as I recall) he has no compunction with killing her along with all of her sisters. There is zero question in JoM that Barabas is a Villain with a capital V, though it is somewhat amusingly considered a tragedy -- not unlike how Richard III was initially billed. The parallels between Barabas and Richard III are quite stark too, incidentally.
But there's a lot to be learned from how Shakespeare's central Jew is far more humanized than the entertainingly two-dimensional Barabas. I wouldn't call either play expressly anti-semitic, even though I completely understand how they could be seen that way. The bumbling antics of the Turks and Christians in JoM suggest that all faiths were equally contemptible (even if Barabas is the one truly wicked character), while Shylock's nuanced humanness makes it very easy for audiences/readers to see him as a sympathetic character. I've taught Merchant once, and that's how the students saw him -- flawed, but sympathetic. His forced conversion in the last act is the tragic end of a broken man who has lost everything: his daughter, his money, and finally his faith. I don't like to deal much in wanton speculations about Shakespeare's motives and mindsets, but I don't think you can write such beautiful and compelling speeches for a character like Shylock without having legitimate sympathies for his situation. The character's lot is objectively unfair, and if we want to give Shakespeare extreme credit, perhaps he was carefully playing both sides.
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