The Great Jewish Families

The Sassoon family consisted of generations of shrewd businesspeople from Baghdad to Bombay, whose achievements brought them wealth, knighthoods and far-reaching influence. Though it was David Sassoon who initiated cotton trading out of Bombay (now Mumbai) to China, and son Elias Sassoon who had the ingenuity to buy and build his own warehouses in Shanghai, it was Sir Victor Sassoon (1881–1961) who finally amassed the family fortune and enjoyed his wealth during Shanghai’s heyday. Victor concentrated his energies on buying up Shanghai’s land and building offices, apartments and warehouses, at one time owning an estimated 1900 buildings in Shanghai. Victor left the city in 1941, returning only briefly after the war to tidy up the business, and then he and his assets relocated to the Bahamas. He had plenty of affairs but remained a bachelor until he finally married his American nurse when he was 70.

Today the Sassoon legacy lives on in the historic Fairmont Peace Hotel (Click here) and Sassoon Mansion (known to Sassoon as ‘Eve’) – now the Cypress Hotel in Hongqiao – each the site of some infamously raucous Sassoon soirees. For one of his cele­brated fancy dress parties, he requested guests to come dressed as if shipwrecked.

The company of David Sassoon & Sons gave rise to several other notables in Shanghai, among them Silas Hardoon and Elly Kadoorie. Hardoon began his illustrious career as a night guard and later, in 1880, as manager of David Sassoon & Sons. Two years later he set out to do business on his own and promptly went bust. His second independent business venture in 1920 proved successful and Silas Hardoon made a name for himself in real estate. In his father’s memory he built the Beth Aharon Synagogue near Suzhou Creek, which later served as a shelter for Polish Jews who had fled Europe. It has since been demolished. Once a well-respected member of both the French and International Councils, Hardoon’s reputation turned scandalous when he took a Eurasian wife, Luo Jialing, and adopted a crowd of multicultural children. He then began to study Buddhism. His estate, including the school he had erected (now the grounds of the Shanghai Exhibition Centre), went up in smoke during the Sino-Japanese War. At the time of his death in 1931, he was the richest man in Shanghai.

Like Silas Hardoon, Elly Kadoorie began a career with David Sassoon & Sons in 1880 and he too broke away and amassed a fortune – in real estate, banking and rubber production. His famous mansion is the result of too much money left in the hands of an unreliable architect; after returning from three years in England, Kadoorie found a 19.5m-high ballroom aglow with 5.4m chandeliers and enough imported marble to warrant the name Marble Hall. Architecture detectives can still visit the staircases and peek at the ballroom of the former mansion, once the site of Shanghai’s most extravagant balls and now home to the Children’s Palace. Kadoorie died the year the communists took power; you can visit his mausoleum in the International Cemetery (Click here).

With their immense wealth, many Jewish families were pivotal in aiding the thousands of refugees who fled to Shanghai. The Kadoorie family now resides in Hong Kong and is still involved in charity work.

Jing’an Sights | Drinking & Nightlife | Entertainment | Shopping | Sports & Activities Eating

Although business lunches and after-dinner drinks are the rule in Jing’an, most of the dining options here have long been first-rate, and those on a culinary tour of Shanghai should definitely squeeze the area into their itinerary.

West Nanjing Road

Fu 1088 Shanghainese $$$

Дата добавления: 2015-11-14