Gabriel Rabinovich

Civil engineer, 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)

Rabinovich studied at Vladivostok Commercial College and Tomsk Technology Institute. He left Russia in 1920, stayed briefly in Shanghai and left the next year for Palestine. Two years later he returned to Shanghai, where his brother David was living; their parents joined them there as well. 

In 1927, as a "penniless architect" and 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 worked for Elliott Hazzard studio as Chief Architect. In that period, he designed and constructed the office of Shanghai Power Co. on Nanking Road, 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 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’s designs showcased his talent for creating artful buildings on irregularly shaped lots.

For a number of years Rabinovich was Consulting Architect at Standard Oil Co. in Nanking, where he led the restoration and rebuilding of war-damaged buildings of the company. He also served as the architect for the Recoletos Procuration, which the representative of the mission confirmed in 1947. Thanks to his encouragement and training, several of his younger colleagues became successful architects.

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 and family moved to Israel, where the architect worked in civil building organizations and became a member of the Association of Engineers and Architects in Israel. His 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 of $10,000 from the sale of the Ashkenazi Synagogue in Shanghai in 1957, it opened in September 1961. The next year, Rabinovich died of a heart disease at the age of 63.