Proudly serving Hong Kong Jewry for over 100 years.

The first Jewish residents of Hong Kong were traders and merchants who arrived after the Opium Wars of 1839-42. Jewish life on the island was prospering by the end of the 1800s. The Jewish community was predominantly Sephardi, comprised primarily by the family and staff members of D. Sassoon Sons & Company and E.D. Sassoon & Company which were Iraqi merchants based in Bombay. In the late 1890s grandsons of David Sassoon donated the synagogue and its Robinson Road site to the Jewish community.

Hong Kong architects Leigh & Orange designed the synagogue in the Edwardian free-baroque style with the floor plan following the standard Sephardi layout. The corner stone was laid in May of 1901 and the building was completed eleven months later. In 1905 a Jewish Recreation Club was built on the synagogue grounds funded by a donation from the Kadoorie family. During World War II Japanese forces occupied Hong Kong sending many members of the Jewish community to prisoner-of-war camps. The recreation club was destroyed; the synagogue was requisitioned but the Torah scrolls were safely hidden. Hong Kong enjoyed an economic boom after World War II, the Jewish community swelled and the synagogue was restored.

In the latter decades of the 20th century a Jewish Community Centre was built on the synagogue lands. It includes a Jewish day school, kosher supermarket, meat and dairy restaurants, indoor swimming pool, mikvah, function rooms and offices. In 1997 work began to refurbish the synagogue and bring it up to modern standards. In 2000 Ohel Leah won recognition from UNESCO as the Outstanding Project for Cultural Heritage Conservation.

As of 2016 Ohel Leah’s membership is more than 200 families from over seventeen different countries.