RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1990 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/d79206299 252 'Mountain Lodge', the Governor's summer residence. Smith was convinced the Peak Tram had a future. The original promoters included F.B. Johnson of Britain, F.D. Sassoon of Hong Kong, C.V. Smith of Shanghai, and W.K. Hughes of Hong Kong. Capital for the new company amounted to $125,000 in $100 shares. Construction began in September 1885, when 30 to 40 families customarily spent their summers on the Peak. The Peak Hotel was opened in 1873. The Peak Tram consulting committee included Phineas Ryrie, Findlay Smith, A. McIver, J.B. Coughtrie, and McEwen and Company. The project was completed and opened on 30th May 1888. The original tram had 30 seats, the front two of which were reserved for the Governor until two minutes before departure. The steepest gradient is one in two, at May Road, and the original steam engines were not replaced by an electrically powered system until 1926. The ten-minute journey on the cable car provided the only mechanical form of transportation to the 1305-foot high Victoria Gap until Stubbs Road was completed in 1924. In 1905, the original firm was sold to the newly-incorporated Peak Tramways Company which included entrepreneurs such as Sir Paul Chater, H.N. Mody (Mody Road is named after this Parsee merchant), Abraham Jacob Raymond, Charles Wedderburn Dixon, and Creasy Ewens. The Kadoorie family has been connected with the Tramway since 1905. Trams and trains In spite of the original 1883 Ordinance, mentioned above, the tramway scheme along the North shore of Hong Kong Island was delayed. It finally opened in 1904. In those early years, trams were a prestige form of travel. Similarly, although Jardine's and the Hong Kong and Shanghai Bank formed a company in 1898, which was granted rights to build a railway from Kowloon to Canton, construction did not begin until 1906 and was undertaken, in the event, by Government. The British section was completed in 1910. By October 1911, the railway opened for through traffic to Canton. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1992 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/qf85tx75x 154 Abdullah Sassoon (Member Bombay Legislative Council, 1818-1896) David Sassoon and His Family 2 daughters Sir Albert Abdullah 2 daughters Sir Jacob Sir Edward Sir Victor Joseph Hannah Moise (d. 1870) Sir Elias David (1843-1884) Meyei Leah Gubbay David (d. 1879) Hannah Joseph (d. 1826) David Sassoon 1792-1864 (First Jewish trader in Shanghai) Flora Hyeen (d. 1886) 3 daughters David Sassoon 1832-1867 || Flora Reuben David Reuben Arthur Abraham David 1840-1912 || Eugenie Louise Jadilk Perugia David Aaron 1841-1894 || Flora Abraham Frederick David David Sassoon's elder brother, Abdullah Sassoon, who had supervised the family's business in Bombay, was a member of the Bombay Legislative Council. David Sassoon and Company, incorporated in London to buy and sell raw cotton, began to carry opium in the early 1830s. After the Opium War ended in 1842, David Sassoon and Company moved into Hong Kong, and, as soon as British authorities were ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1992 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/qf85tx75x 159 for instance, he organized the Shanghai Jewish Youth Association School, or the Kadoorie School, in Hongkew for refugee children. Horace Kadoorie is also active in youth affairs. Religious Life In the 1920s there were two synagogues in Shanghai: Ohel Rachel and Beth Aharon. Ohel Rachel was successor to Beth El, built by Sir Jacob Sassoon. The congregation Beth El had been in existence since 2 August, 1878, although they had used rented space for worship until 1917. Rabbi W Hirsch did not sign up for a second term reputedly because he did not like the wealthy. No other rabbi was appointed. The principal of the Shanghai Jewish School, Mendel Brown, served as rabbi unofficially. 24 In 1900, a group which thought that Beth El was too relaxed about observation of orthodox traditions left Beth El and organized Sheerith Israel. The new congregation included some of the most illustrious names in Shanghai Abraham, A.E. Moses, and M.J. Isaac, for instance. It built the Beth Aharon Synagogue on Seymour Road, and which was later moved to Museum Road downtown, with funds contributed mostly by Hardoon. The synagogue included space for a Hebrew school (Talmud Torah) as well as a ritualarium (mikveh). 25 A third congregation came into being when Shanghai was inundated by Jewish refugees from Germany and Eastern Europe during the late 1930s. This was Ohel Moshe in Hongkew, built in 1941, architecturally a twin of the Jewish synagogue in Hong Kong. It boasted a capacity for 1,000 worshippers at a time. The Jewish cemetery built in 1862 on Mohawk Road was destroyed during the Cultural Revolution a century later. Educational, Social, and Charitable Institutions Newspapers A bibliography of the Jewish Press in China gives six Jewish publications in Shanghai. One of these newspapers, Israel's Messenger, ================================================================================