The book comprises a survey of the various governments of Europe at whose several capitals these Jewish rabbis reside either permanently or temporarily during their travels.

In the latter, it is more of the philosophy of common sense that it is question and the skepticism spread there by Boyer d'Argens throughout the work more akin, and far, to the spirit Of a Bayle than of Montesquieu.

The Jewish Letters were inspired by a trip to Turkey made by Boyer d'Argens in the company of Audrezel's French ambassador, a friend of his father: he met a Jewish physician named Fonseca (whose name resembles To that of one of his correspondents in the Jewish letters, Aaron Monceca), a priest in Spain, but who remained secretly faithful to Judaism, and who for fear of the Holy Office, to whom he was not without some suspicious reason, Refugee in Constantinople.

Boyer d'Argens in these Letters remains beneath his model, but as he manifests what pleased above all the readers of the Enlightenment, great liberty and even a great license of thought, the Jewish Letters, very well received, Ensured lasting fame to their author.

They attracted in particular the attention of Voltaire and Frederick II who gave him the nickname of "Brother Isaac".