With the rise of mercantile empires hospitable to Jews, such as the Dutch, English and Ottoman empires during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, Jewish communities across the globe began actively trading and furnishing their synagogues with valuable goods including ritual objects, such as Torah scrolls and books, as well as furniture, tapestries and building materials. e skills of cra sman and artists were also part of this economic exchange. While congregations had a history of importing furnishings for centuries – indeed, from the Middle Ages synagogues such as the Al-Ghriba Synagogue in Djerba, Tunisia, and the Altneuschul in Prague, Czech Republic, have traditions that each was constructed with some stone imported from the destroyed temple in Jerusalem1 – never before did they have such an exotic and geographically broad market. e eclectic collection of exotic materials and Jewish art by congregations for their synagogues was a by-product of early modern globalization. is is re ected in the motherland synagogues of imperial powers, on colonial and borderland frontiers, as well as lands that were third party trading partners. Early modern globalization a ected the availability of precious and semi-precious materials, such as silver extracted from the Spanish Americas and textiles from Asia, and also created markets for materials previously unknown in the Old World, like exotic hardwoods from Amazonia. Judaica items such as Torah shields (o en made of silver) were also coming into their current form, the earliest of which date from the sixteenth century.2 us, as shall be described, Jewish ritual art for synagogues was undergoing a more rapid evolution of production and distribution in contrast to prior ages.