Is there such a thing as philosemitism? The concept is often met with skepticism, as this characteristically terse Jewish joke exemplifies. The term is certainly an awkward one, and it has an awkward history. Coined in Germany in 1880 as the antonym to another neologism – antisemitism – the word “philosemitism” was invented by avowed antisemites as a sneering term of denunciation for their opponents. Almost all late nineteenth-century opponents of antisemitism strenuously sought to defend themselves from the charge of philosemitism, insisting instead that they regarded the Jews neutrally and were untainted by prejudice either for or against them. This normalization of attitudes toward Jews has remained the aim of almost all liberal engagements in the field of Jewish–non-Jewish relations, both by Jews and by non-Jews, and from this dominant perspective philosemitism is almost always regarded as deeply suspicious, sharing with antisemitism a trafficking in distorted, exaggerated, and exceptionalist views of Jews and Judaism. Taking these distortions as the essential hallmark of antisemitism, it has seemed reasonable to many to regard philosemitism as a counterfeit benevolence, and philosemites, as Daniel Goldhagen has described them, as “antisemites in sheep's clothing.”

Yet this negative assessment of philosemitism is itself one-sided and prejudicial. Since the period of antiquity favorable characterizations of the Jewish people have recurrently formed a quiet counterpoint to the more familiar hostile stereotypes.

The early seventeenth century witnessed the simultaneous rise of the economic fortunes of European Jewry and of Christian scholarly interest in Jewish texts. Increasingly valued as facilitators of international trade by states and rulers guided by mercantilist economics and raison d'Etat pragmatism, Jews extended their geographical presence and deepened their commercial importance, particularly during the turmoil of the Thirty Years' War. Christian Hebraism, meanwhile, having emerged as a facet of Renaissance humanism, and invigorated by the theological rivalries of the post-Reformation era, reached its intellectual high-water mark in the second quarter of the seventeenth century. In Jonathan Israel's words, “philosemitic scholarship was … born at the same moment, and in the same context, as philosemitic mercantilism.”

What, though, was the relationship between these two phenomena? Or, to pose this question slightly differently, what were the politics of seventeenth-century Christian intellectual engagement with Jews and their texts, and in what sense, and to what extent, is it appropriate to consider this endeavor “philosemitic”? The expansion of Jewish settlement from the mid-sixteenth to the mid-seventeenth century – around the North Sea, in Italy and central Europe, and, slightly later, in colonial settlements around the Caribbean – was overwhelmingly driven by commercial motives. However, this expansion placed practical issues related to Jewish settlement on the intellectual agenda, and in these debates economics, politics, and theology inescapably intertwined.