The synagogue was opened in 1941 to serve the city's then growing Ashkenazi Russian Jewish community, and was closed in 1965 after the departure of most Jews from Shanghai following the Communist victory in China.

[1] During the 1930s, the number of Russian Jews in the city increased to more than 4,000, exceeding the capacity of the existing Ohel Moshe Synagogue in Hongkew.

It was located at 102 rue Tenant de la Tour (Ladu Lu in Chinese, now South Xiangyang Road) in the Shanghai French Concession, and was commonly called the Tenant de la Tour or Ladu Synagogue.

[2][3] The Japanese, who had occupied the Chinese sections of the city since the 1937 Battle of Shanghai, provided tons of cement, a precious commodity during the ongoing Second Sino-Japanese War, for the foundation of the New Synagogue.

[1] With the eruption of the Chinese Civil War and the subsequent establishment of the People's Republic of China in 1949, the Jewish population in Shanghai plummeted.