Ohel Moishe Synagogue

This synagogue was built by the Russian Ashkenazi Jewish community in 1927 and lies in the heart of the 1940s Jewish ghetto. Today it houses the new Shanghai Jewish Refugees Museum, which is an excellent introduction to the lives of the approximately 20,000 Central European refugees who fled to Shànghǎi to escape the Nazis. You can also visit the synagogue. For a mini walking tour of the surrounding streets, turn right outside the synagogue, then right again past the former Jewish tenements of Zhoushan Rd, once the commercial heart of the district. At Huoshan Rd turn left to visit Huoshan Park and the memorial plaque erected for the visit of Yitzak Rabin in the late 1990s. Head back southwest along Huoshan Rd (formerly Wayside Rd) past the art deco facade of the former Broadway Theatre (at No 57, now the Dajinlong Restaurant), with its rooftop Vienna Café, to the Ocean Hotel. Turn right up Haimen Rd (Muirhead Rd), past Changyang Rd, to what was once a row of Jewish shops and a kosher delicatessen. At the top of the road (crossing with Kunming Rd) you’ll see the large, renovated Xiahai Buddhist Monastery (Xiàhǎi Miào; Kunming Rd; 昆明路; admission Y5; 7am-4pm); take a right turn, then another right, down Zhoushan Rd (formerly Ward Rd) once again to complete the circle back to the synagogue. Zhoushan Rd is also home to the British-built Ward RoadJail, once Shànghǎi’s biggest. Used by the Japanese during WWII, it’s still functioning as a prison and is probably as close as you’ll get, or would want to get, to a Chinese detention facility. You can catch bus 33 here from the Bund. If you’re interested in learning more about Hóngkǒu’s Jewish heritage contact Dvir Bar-Gal, an Israeli Shànghǎi resident who offers informative tours (130 021 467 02; www.shanghai-jews.com; tour Y400) of the area.