So, it would appear, prima facie, that the entire Syna- goguc and sprucing up of the Club, notwithstanding the Government's required works in making the site safe, could have been finished for less than the $HK10 million which The Hongkong Land Company Ltd had given to the Trustees in an attempt to ‘purge its soul' for breaking the company's contract with the Trustees.
Yet the Trustees have themselves stated on more than one occasion that the cost of the required works would be in the region of $HK10 million to $HK25 million.
Surely, the Trustees know best! And the Chief Trus- tee, who is also the Chief Jew of Hongkong, is one of the richest men in the world, and so if he doesn't know the exact cost of something in which he has a shaky hand, then nobody knows.
How could there be such a difference of opinion: The Lord proposes one price as being the true price; and the Government of Hongkong is suggesting that a figure of one fifth that proposed by the Chief Jew is the correct and proper amount?
Mr Jason Yuen, Chairman of the Antiquities Advisory Board and the man who received in 1966 the benefits of The Lawrence Kadooric Scholarship while attending The Israeli Institute of Technology, made a presentation, in- formally, to the Lord Kadoorie (as he is now ennobled to that august honour) at which time Mr Yuen was rather careless.
The presentation is recorded in a letter to the Board Members of the Antiquities Advisory Board, dated March 5, 1987.
This letter says, among other things:
Lord Kadoorie... revealed a bit of the factors inside the Jewish Community that necessitated the redevelopment of the site... to the AAB Chairman who agreed, in turn, to keep all the Jewish Community's internal 'affairs' "confidential" at his request...
Slope stabilization was not the major problem that led to the demolition of the Synagogue but a greater exploitation of the land potential (i.e. the maximum use of the basement floors below the existing Synagogue in the new development) and strong personal whims and visions appeared to have been playing a more decisive role...
This appears to prove conclusively that the Lord Kadoorie was being viewed by some as being a whimsical fellow with 'personal visions', rather than one who adopted a more professional and arm's length view of the matter of the development, or redevelopment, of the Synagogue.
The Stupid Fellow
It would be unkind to label anybody as being stupid just because of their age or because of their whimsicality.
After all, Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote some of his most interesting works when he was more than 80 years old. That was at the time that he postulated the idea of a super being known as God.
--
The Egyptian ruler Akharnarton of Akharnatonian, of 5,000 B.C., who is credited with being the first monothe- istic thinker he had personal visions about the sun being the God, or something like that was eventually butch- ered by those who were confident that God was a pan- theon of little gods, with mothers and brothers and sisters, aunts and uncles, and a little bit of incest thrown in for good measure.
Akharnarton built temples to the Sun God and today there is still a religion which believes that God is the Sun: Zoroaster is the name of the God and it is commonly referred to in Hongkong as a Parsee religion.
The Lord Kadoorie is believed to be Jewish, though there have been murmurings that he wants to be cre- mated, a most unorthodox suggestion.
As Chief Jew of Hongkong, the Lord Kadoorie leads, and all of the subordinate Jews must follow, even if they are fatter or less rich than the Lord Kadoorie.
-
Having allowed The Hongkong Land Company Ltd to get off the hook with a mere $HK10-million donation to the Jewish Community Trevor Bedford, The Land Company's Managing Director at the time, must have loved giving $HK10 million to a bunch of Jews, he being a devout Catholic the Lord Kadoorie gave the right to develop Number 70, Robinson Road, the site of the Jewish Club and the Synagogue, to Swire Properties Ltd.
--
It is difficult to understand the Lord Kadoorie's think- ing at the time of the give-away, but he must have had some logic in his mind at the time.
Getting back to Akharnarton and the sun, he too had a vision, a vision that any force as great as the sun must
- 22 ·
No comments yet.
Private notes are available after approval.