Shanghai Synagogue: The House of Rachel
Jacob Sassoon built an empire, but his sweetest legacy is the temple he built for his wife.
The Sassoon family made a fortune in Shanghai: everyone knows that. It was Sassoon money that built so many of Shanghai’s landmarks: the Peace Hotel; Grosvenor House; Embankment Building – everyone knows that, too. But what everyone perhaps does not know is that the fabulously wealthy Sassoons also gave generously back to their community, and their most significant gift was the Ohel Rachel synagogue.
Ohel Rachel (“house of Rachel”) stands quietly on North Shaanxi Road, a stately Greek Revival temple whose grandeur is enhanced by the patina of age. Today, it is part of the Shanghai Education Commission compound, (and used only occasionally by the Jewish community), but when it was first built, in 1921, it was the religious center of Shanghai Sephardic Jewish life.
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