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 MARBLE HALL ~ The Kadoorie Home--Shanghai Children's Palaces |
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ceo/cfo
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作者：ceo/cfo 在 海归茶馆 发贴, 来自【海归网】 http://www.haiguinet.com
ZT
In a city filled with splendid mansions of foreign and Chinese businessmen of the 19th and 20th centuries, the houses of the Iraqi Jews were legendary. Most magnificent among them was Marble Hall, the Kadoorie home. Born in Baghdad, Sir Elly Kadoorie arrived in Shanghai from Bombay on May 20th, 1880 as an employee of Shanghai's first Iraqi Jewish firm, David Sassoon & Sons. He left to start his own business with $500 capital and became a wildly successful real estate and hotel owner, merchant banker, and rubber grower.
The site of Marble Hall was originally intended for a club which burned down during construction. Sir Elly purchased the land in 1920 for a home, then took his family to Europe for three years, leaving the houses's construction to an architect who was the stepson of a famous Hollywood actress. While the Kadoories were gone, the architect developed grand ideas. When the Kadoories returned three years later, they found a half-finished building, furious contractors, and the architect in an alcoholic stupor in the hospital. Though the original plans had not called for a ballroom, the architect had created one 65 feet high, 80 feet long, and 50 feet wide, lit by 3,600 electric light bulbs in various colors that would turn the room from pink to blue to red. An extraordinary amount of Italian marble had been imported for the fireplaces, inspiring the name Marble Hall.
To complete the house, Kadoorie hired a half-Italian, half-Spanish architect who had just astounded Shanghai with the construction of a grandiose gambling den called The Wheel. Its decor included a mammoth chandelier. Marble Hall became Shanghai's first air conditioned home. The General Electric Company of America made the light fittings, including 18-foot chandeliers in the ballroom. In order to change a bulb, servants lowered the chandeliers to the floor. The home had 43 servants and was visited by many famous people of its day.
Following the Cultural Revolution, Children's Palaces were created throughout China for gifted children to study and practice dance, theater, musical instruments, and computer science as well as other arts. Visitors may attend special performances in this mansion, which is now a Shanghai Children's Palace.
Kadoorie photograph courtesy of The Jews in Shanghai by Pan Guang, Shanghai Pictorial Publishing House, 1995
Historical information for this piece gathered from Shanghai, by Harriet Sergeant, John Murray Publishing, London, 1998
OHEL-RACHEL SYNAGOGUE
Of eight to ten synagogues that once existed in Shanghai, several remain, now in use as public or government buildings. In 1999, the newly-restored Ohel Rachel synagogue was the site of High Holy Days services for the first time in nearly 50 years, led by Rabbi Shalom Greenberg, rabbi of Shanghai's Jewish community and emissary of the Chabad-Lubavitch movement. The ivy-covered synagogue was built in 1920 by Sir Victor Sassoon in memory of his wife, Rachel. Marble pillars flank a walk-in ark (which once held Torah scrolls), and wide balconies overlook the sanctuary.
This synagogue was once a center of life for 30,000 Jews who found refuge in Shanghai during this century when fleeing the pogroms of Russia, the Russian Revolution, and Nazi persecution during World War II. After the war, most of Shanghai's Jews left for Israel or Western countries. The last community prayer service held at Ohel-Rahel (prior to last year) was in 1952. Today the synagogue is the home of an exhibit of the city's Jewish community as it was during the earlier decades of this century.
In 2001, the World Monuments Fund added Ohel Rachel Synagogue to the 2002 Watch List of 100 Most Endangered Sites. The Fund publishes the list in order to bring attention to threatened cultural sites and revises its list every two years. Henry Ng, the fund's executive vice-president, said Ohel Rachel was chosen because it symbolizes the long history of Jews in China. For 50 years the building has been used by various state and local governmental bodies. Recurring leaks and vegetation growth threaten its structural fabric. Perhaps the most important factor in the fund's decision to include Ohel Rachel on the list was the energy and commitment of Shanghai's Jewish Community to be advocates for the building and to ensure its long-term future.
When Ohel Rachel was built, Shanghai had a population of approximately 1,700 Jews. It was constructed to accommodate a community of approximately 600 Jews from Baghdad living in Shanghai at the time. With a seating capacity of 700, the Sephardic synagogue had an ark that held 30 Torah scrolls. It is part of a compound that at one time included a Jewish school, library, playground, and mikvah.
Sir Jacob Elias Sassoon, a Baghdadi Jew living in Hong Kong, endowed the synagogue in memory of his wife, Lady Rachel. The first major wave of Jews, primarily from Baghdad and Bombay, came to Shanghai after the city was opened to foreign traders in 1842 following the Opium War. A second wave of Jewish immigrants came from Russia in the decades following the 1917 Russian Revolution. The third wave of Jews moved to Shanghai from central Europe in the 1930s and during WWII. Because the city was the only place in the world not to require a visa for entry, approximately 20,000 Jews escaped to Shanghai between 1938 and 1945.
After the Communist takeover in 1949, Shanghai's Jewish community dwindled. The government confiscated Ohel Rachel in 1952, removing its furniture and decorations. During the Cultural Revolution in the 1960s, Ohel Rachel's windows and ornaments were smashed. The building was used for government functions.
In 1993, the city of Shanghai declared Ohel Rachel a historic landmark, which granted it some protection, but continued to use it as a municipal building. After then first lady Hillary Rodham Clinton and Secretary of State Madeline Albright asked to visit the building during a 1998 visit to China, the city cleaned and painted the building, but little structural repair was done. Ohel Rachel is still owned by the government, which lets Shanghai's Jewish community of approximately 300 use it only a few times a year, though through continuing negotiations, the Jewish community hopes to use the building more often and eventually purchase the compound that includes it. The Jewish community hopes the Monuments Fund listing will encourage the city to return the building to the congregation.
作者：ceo/cfo 在 海归茶馆 发贴, 来自【海归网】 http://www.haiguinet.com
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 MARBLE HALL ~ The Kadoorie Home--Shanghai Children's Palaces -- ceo/cfo - (6541 Byte) 2007-1-28 周日, 10:03 (846 reads)
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