Viennese gentlemen sip coffee outside Austrian bakeries, so authentic that the Hongkou (Jewish) ghetto is called Little Vienna. Jewish diners read papers printed in German, Polish and even Yiddish. Students are learning books under the guidance of the rabbi and tango is danced every night at Silk Hat in the French Concession"
Life was not always so jolly, of course. Food was scarce and disease rampant in the community in the early 1940s during the Japanese occupation.
But in Shanghai, unlike the cities of a burning Europe, nearly all the Jews survived the war.
Leiwi Imas more than survived he prospered.
Since the mid-1940s, he and his family had lived on the third floor of the three-storey house belonging to the Jewish Club, which has been well preserved at No 642 Fuxing Lu together with its extravagantly large garden.
As president of the little-documented club, he had the privilege of living in the house.