Hillel Yaffe

After traveling around the country, Yaffe settled in Tiberias. He worked as a doctor there for two years (1891–1893) and then moved to Zikhron Ya'akov. He was noted especially for his dedicated work for the people of Hadera, who were suffering from malaria. He visited the moshava of Hadera at least twice a week and succeeded to heal some of the men, but the mortality rate remained high. Slowly it became apparent that a fundamental, broad program would be necessary to remove the scourge of malaria from the Jewish settlement, since individual treatment was insufficient. In 1895, two years after he became the doctor of Zikhron Ya'akov, Yaffe received a nomination to become the representative of Hovevei Zion in Israel. This nomination opened a new chapter in Yaffe's life.

Yaffe's decision to combine medicine with political activism derived from his realization that in order to fulfill his mission for the Jewish settlement in Israel, it was necessary to form new institutions. Yaffe understood that in order to succeed in eradicating malaria, he needed to combine practical treatment of patients with research, community activism, and politics. When Yaffe accepted this job, he moved to Jaffa, which was a central city, and managed to raise money to drain the infested swamp near Hadera. He traveled to Europe to raise money for various purposes such as saving the first Hebrew school, which was on the verge of financial collapse.

Yaffe became a noted authority on malaria, its prevention and its cure. He published many articles and even lectured in Paris in an international conference on malaria in 1900. He worked to improve public health and studied other illnesses which had spread throughout the region, with an emphasis on prevention and minimizing contagious spreading of diseases. In 1902, an epidemic of cholera spread through Israel. Yaffe was appointed by the Turkish government to combat the epidemic. He decided that people were forbidden to leave their communities, and that it was forbidden to enter or leave the house of a sick person, in order to stop the illness from spreading. The epidemic was stopped.

In 1903 Yaffe participated in a delegation of the Zionist movement to investigate the El-Arish region, a prospective location for a Jewish state suggested by Theodor Herzl at the Zionist Congress. In the same year, representatives of Zikhron Ya'akov gathered and established the General Union and Teachers' Union of the Yishuv. Yaffe stood as their head and worked to establish the resources of the communities so that they would not need to rely on external financial support. He also worked to convince the groups who worked in education to use the Hebrew language.

In 1905, Yaffe abandoned Hovevei Zion and began to work in the Jaffa hospital. During his work he became sick with pneumonia and traveled to Europe to heal. In 1907 he returned to Israel and began to run the hospital in Zikhron Ya'akov. Yaffe's extensive knowledge of the importance of public health and the practical realities of Israel led him to build a widespread system of prevention. He trained crews of medics who could help settlers, and these crews spread throughout the land and improved the level of prevention and treatment in the population.

In 1919, he moved from Zikhron Ya'akov to Haifa, where he worked as a doctor and published articles on medicine. His articles were published in newspapers outside the country, and he was invited to international medical conferences. Yaffe continued to work until his death in 1936. He was buried, according to his wishes, in Zikhron Ya'akov.

Hillel Yaffe 1931