What the World Can Learn from the Zionist Victory over Malaria

Between 1922 and his death in 1944, the microbiologist Israel Jacob Kligler ran a public-health campaign that effectively eliminated malaria in the Land of Israel. When Kligler arrived in Mandate Palestine in 1920, writes Anton Alexander, it was simply “drenched in malaria,” a disease that rendered vast swathes of the country uninhabitable and accounted for the relatively small population. The British military lost nearly half its fighting strength due to the disease during a nine-week period in 1918. That Israel can now sustain a population more than eighteen times what it was in 1920 is, according to Alexander, in part the result of the decision of the World Zionist Organization and the Yishuv to back Kligler’s efforts.