Biography
Hillel Yaffe was born in 1864 in a small village in the Ukraine. His father was a merchant and a man of means, who provided his son with a traditional Jewish education. When he grew up, Yaffe was sent to learn in a secondary school in order to expand his horizons. These studies encouraged him to study medicine and brought him close to the Zionist movement. When he finished secondary school, he traveled to Geneva, where he began to study medicine. Afterward he specialized in eye care in Paris. He began to publish laboratory work in his field of expertise, and his research was respected in the scientific community. Yaffe's decision to specialize in medicine, especially in eye care, derived from his dream to become a doctor in the Land of Israel. In 1891, he traveled to Turkey, the seat of the Ottoman Empire, where he received a license to practice medicine. From there, he sailed to Jaffa.
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