Zvi Sliternik

Zvi Sliternik was born in 1897 in Khmelnytskyi

Sliternik was born in 1897 in Proskurov, in the Podolia region of the Russian Empire, today Khmelnytskyi in Ukraine. His parents were Haim and Rachel Sliternik. He studied medicine at the University of Kyiv, and after a pogrom in his town in 1919 he treated the wounded at the district hospital.

He left before finishing medicine and moved to the Land of Israel. There he studied biology at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, earned a master's degree in 1937 and later a doctorate. In 1929 he married Shoshanah Lissauer, a volunteer from Berlin.

In 1921 he joined a small unit led by Israel Kligler to develop cheap and effective ways to fight malaria. He became chief supervisor of the malaria research institute in Haifa and oversaw marsh drainage near Hadera and in other regions. In 1942, while searching for mosquito breeding sites near Qumran, he entered a cave where the first Dead Sea Scrolls were later found.

He headed the IDF entomological service in 1948. From 1949 to 1962 he directed the entomology department of the Ministry of Health, and malaria was eradicated in 1962. He also worked against bilharzia.