A lasting legacy of when Shanghai gave refuge to the Jews

• Published date: 01 January 2021
• Publication title: Shanghai Daily

The gray-hued Building No. 10 of the Eye and ENT Hospital of Fudan University , on Fenyang Road was the Shanghai Jewish hospital in the 1940s. It was a work of Livin Goldenstaedt, the most prolific Russian architect in old Shanghai.

"Jewish people paid great attention to public health. The hospital was moved from today's Changle Road to Fenyang Road in 1942," says Professor Wang Jian from Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences who authored the book "Shanghai Jewish Cultural Map."

According to Shanghai local annals, in 1929, the city's Sephardie Jews founded the Shanghai lodge of B'nai B'rith, a religious organization to conduct charity and relief work in the Jewish community with D. E. J. Abraham as the leader. They opened the B'nai B'rith Polyclinic and Hospital on Rue Bourgeat (today's Changle Road) in February 1934 with funds donated by the prominent Jewish businessman Elly Kadoorie. Dr I. M. Steinman served as the director.

After the outbreak of World War II, the Russian Jewish community in the city took over the clinic in 1942, moved it to the current site on Route Pichon (now Fenyang Road) and expanded it to become the Shanghai Jewish Hospital.

According to Shanghai Jewish Hospital's former manager Israel Kipen's autobiography "A Life to Live", the new hospital building on Route Pichon belonged to the Catholic Church and was occupied by the Polish diplomatic mission which vacated it as a result of the war. The Jewish community took out a lease and established a hospital with 60 beds, an operating theater and other support facilities.

Today, the hospital still preserves copies of original drawings of the gray building which was designed in 1931 by Goldenstaedt.

In the new edition of "The Evolution of Shanghai Architecture in Modern Times" published months ago, Tongji University professor Zheng Shiling praised Goldenstaedt as "the most prolific Russian architect in old Shanghai" who won an honorary prize of the design competition for Sun Yat-sen's Mausoleum in Nanjing in 1925.

"Born in 1878 in Vladivostok, the architect graduated from the the Architectural Engineering Institute of St Petersberg, designed the Central Hotel in Vladivostok and moved to Shanghai in 1922, where he worked for 13 years. His signature works include the Clements Apartments in 1929, the King Albert Apartments in 1930, the Sacred Heart Church in 1931 and Astrid Apartments in 1933.

Most of Livin's works were Art Deco "with lines and patterns in the part," Professor Zheng writes in the book.

...