The Port Jew concept was formulated by and David Sorkin in the late 1990s as a that describes Jews who were involved in the seafaring and maritime economy of Europe, especially in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Helen Fry suggests that they could be considered to have been "the earliest modern Jews." The concept of the "Port Jew" has been suggested as an "alternate path to modernity" that was distinct from the European Haskalah. Port Jews are described as the product of what is characterized as the "liberal environment" of port towns and cities.