"Nathan the Wise" by Gotthold Ephraim Lessing is a play that contrasts with Shakespeare's "The Merchant of Venice," presenting a philo-Semitic narrative reflecting religious tolerance.

In 1785, Moses Mendelssohn, a prominent Enlightenment philosopher and a symbol of religious tolerance, found himself embroiled in a controversy sparked by Friedrich Jacobi's public disclosure that their mutual friend, Lessing, had embraced Spinozism.