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Contact information:
P.O. Box 8266,
Shawnee Mission,
Kansas 66208
Website:
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Lee Greif
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About Lee Greif
During his recent visit to Shanghai China, Lee Greif visited Ohel Rachel Synagogue. It was built to accomodate Shanghais's First Wave of Jewish immigrants -Baghdadi Jews (which at its peak numbered 700), opened in March 1920, and was consecrated by Rabbi W. Hirsch for worship on January 23, 1921. The site hosted the Shanghai Jewish School (the 1932 building still stands on the left of the courtyard), a playground, library and mikveh. It was located on Seymour Road (now 500 North Shaanxi Road).
. Today, the Ohel Rachel Synagogue remains the most significant symbol of the crucial Jewish role in Shanghai's history. Ohel Rachel was the first of seven synagogues built in Shanghai, and only one of two still standing today. The other, the Ohel Moishe Synagogue located in Hong Kou district, hosts a museum dedicated to the history of the Jewish experience in Shanghai.
Between 1939 and 1940, approximately 1,000 Polish Jews escaped to Shanghai, avoiding certain death. Among these, all the teachers and students of the Mir Ygshiva, some 400 in number, miraculously survived and continued their studies in the Beth Aharon Synagogue, the only place of worship with space enough to hold the entire Yeshiva. They escaped Poland through Vilna, obtained transit visas to Japan from Sugihara Chiune, the Japanese consul in Kovno, and finally made their way to Shanghai Many have subsequently immigrated to Israel and the US. The Jewish permanent Jewish population of Shanghai while small, is beginning to grow and, in fact, since the cultural revolution has significantly accelerated.
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