Gabriel Rabinovich

Architect

Born in Polotsk, in Vitebsk province, Russia, on 8 June, 1899; died in Tel Aviv, on March 16, 1962. Had wife Rosa (Rosetta) Isakovna; daughter Isa (Isabel Sharon), born on 18 November 1927; son Boris, born on 9 December 1931.

Rena Krasno, author of the memoir Strangers Always, was his niece; she passed his architectural drawings and photographs to the Hoover Archives. According to her memoir, Uncle Gava was well-educated, wrote plays, told great jokes and doted on his wife. "Gava, endowed with a large bulbous nose, regales all and sundry with hilarious, often bawdy, tales told in a wide range of accents – Georgian, Tartar, Yiddish, Chinese." (Strangers Always)

In 1927, as a "penniless architect" and already married, Rabinovich created his earliest known project – the conversion of a residential building on Ward Road into the new Ohel Moshe Synagogue. The rebuilding required the removal of the second floor and the addition of pillars to support the roof. A mezzanine was constructed so women could pray separately from men. (Rena Krasno, Russian Jews in Shanghai) The synagogue opened in October 1928.

In 1930–1931 Rabinovich joined E. Hazzard and E. S. J. Phillips at Elliott Hazzard, as Chief Architect. During that period, the company designed and constructed the office of Shanghai Power Co. on Nanking Road; Rabinovich supervised the project. During his time with Elliott Hazzard, the firm also designed Lieu Ong Kee Building, on Szechuen Road, and Brookside Apartments, on Avenue Haig.

In 1933–1935, he worked for the Republic Land Investment Co. 五和洋行, which was implementing a massive development scheme on North Szechuen Road and siting three multistory buildings there. The flagship of the project – the New Asia Hotel – was designed by the company's chief architect S. A. Sayer, with no involvement of Poy Gum Lee (in spite of common claims); Rabinovich designed the other two apartment buildings – the Bridge House and Derring Apartments – which opened on 15 January 1935. During the Japanese occupation of Shanghai, the Bridge House became the infamous military prison and its apartments were converted to cells.

Rabinovich designed Doumer Apartments, Koffman Apartments (for Mrs. Vera L. Koffman), and "several other small streamline moderne buildings in the French Concession". He was also the author of modernist apartments at 1274 Avenue Joffre and 27 Avenue Petain, which are still extant. Among the works that do not survive are the modernist residence on Route Magniny, a house on Route Paul Henry and (possibly) one Spanish-style and one modernist residence, both on Route de Sieyes.

Rabinovich was a board member of the Russian Jewish Club and a member of the Jewish Company of the Shanghai Volunteer Corps. He acted as a secretary of the committee for the construction of the New Ashkenazi Synagogue, on Route Tenant de la Tour, designed by his colleague Emmanuel Gran. According to the testimony of his daughter Isabel, Rabinovich participated in all the activities of the Russian Artistic and Literary Circle and was a dedicated member of ORT (Society for the Encouragement of Handicrafts). He contributed to the welfare of the European Jewish refugees in Shanghai in the 1940s.

In 1949, the Rabinovich family moved to Israel. The architect’s final project was the design of the Synagogue and Communal Center for Yigud Yotsei Sin (the Jewish Communities of China), in Tel Aviv. Partially funded with the proceeds from the sale of the Gran-designed Ashkenazi Synagogue in Shanghai, it opened in September 1961. Rabinovich died of a heart disease at the age of 63.