Public Health,Racial Tensions,and Body Politic: Mass Ringworm Irradiation in Israel,1949–1960

On public health and its importance in the Zionist context, see Davidovitch N. Shvarts S. , “Health and Hegemony: Preventive Medicine, Immigration and the Israeli Melting Pot,” Israel Studies 9, no. 2 (2004): 150–179; Davidovitch N. Seidelman R. , “Herzl's Altneuland: Zionist Utopia, Medical Science and Public Health,” Korot: The Israel Journal of the History of Medicine and Science 17 (2004): 1–20.

The exact number of irradiated children is unknown. It is clear that previous estimations, based mainly on Professor Baruch Modan's epidemiological investigations that put the numbers close to 20,000, were too conservative. Part of the reason is related to the fact that many children were irradiated abroad and that Modan was not fully aware of Arab irradiated children.

For the classical description of ringworm irradiation methods, see Kienbock R. , “Uber Radiotherapie der Haarerkrankungen,” [Radiotherapy of hair illnesses] Arch. Dermatol. Syph. Wien. 83 (1907): 77–111; Adamson H. , “A Simplified Method of X-ray Application for the Cure of Ringworm of the Scalp: Kienbock's Method,” The Lancet 1 (1909): 1378–1380.

The Compensation for Victims of Ringworm Law, 1994 S.H. 1478.

See also Davidovitch N. Margalit A. , “Public Health Law and Traumatic Collective Experiences,” in Sarat A. Davidovitch N. Alberstein M. , eds., Trauma and Memory: Reading, Healing, and Making Law (Stanford University Press, 2007): 119–167.

For a recent summary of these arguments, see Falk R. , Zionism and the Biology of the Jews [in Hebrew] (Tel Aviv: Resling, 2006).

Id. On the various medical reactions to the “Jewish problem” — both Zionist and non-Zionist — see Efron J. M. , Defenders of the Race: Jewish Doctors & Race Science in Fin-de-Si cle Europe (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1994). On the rise of “Jewish” social sciences during the turn of the 20th century, see Hart M. B. , Social Science and the Politics of Modern Jewish Identity (Stanford Studies in Jewish History and Culture) (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2000).

See, for example, Orbach A. , “Russian Jewish History,” Modern Judaism10, no. 3 (1990): 325–342; Nathans B. , Beyond the Pale: The Jewish Encounter with Late Imperial Russia (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2002).

See Efron , supra note 7; Hart , supra note 7.

The first major irradiation campaign among Jews was conducted by the American Joint Distribution Committee (AJDC), an American Jewish philanthropic organization established in 1914. Eight X-ray centers were established in 1921 in Poland, and about 20,000 children were irradiated in the next few years. See Favus , Medico-Sanitary Department, Warsaw, Poland, Box 371, American Joint Distribution Committee Archive, New York.

On the Israeli health services in its first years of statehood, see Grushka T. , Health Services in Israel: A Ten Years Survey, 1948–1958, Ministry of Health, Jerusalem, 1959.

See Davidovitch Shvarts , supra note 1, at 150–179.

See Kraut A. K. , Silent Travelers: Germs, Genes and the Immigrant Menace (Baltimore and London: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1994); Markel H. , Quarantine! East European Jewish Immigrants and the New York City Epidemics of 1892 (Baltimore and London: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1997); Fairchild A. L. , Science at the Borders: Immigrant Medical Inspection and the Shaping of the Modern Industrial Labor Force (Baltimore and London: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2003.)

See Richards H. M. , “The Control of Ringworm in School Children,” Public Health: The Journal of the Society of Medical Officers of Health 21 (1908): 274–277; Turner J. P. , Ringworm and Its Successful Treatment (Philadelphia: F. A. Davis Company, 1921); Dillaha C. J. , “What Is the Best Way to Treat Ringworm of the Scalp?” Journal of the Arkansas Medical Society 51, no. 3 (1955): 266–271; Rosenthal T. , “Perspectives in Ringworm of the Scalp: Treatment through the Ages,” Archives of Dermatology 82, no. 1 (1960): 851–856.

For several important public health articles and books dealing with ringworm, see id. (Turner); id. (Dillaha).

See Die Entstehung der Gesellschaft OSE und ihre ersten Massnahmen [The origin of the OSE organization and its first measures] (Berlin: Verband fuer Gesundhetisschutz der Juden OSE, 1925): at 7.

“Wegen oisraten di krankeit ‘parekh’ bei iden,” [On the liquidation of the disease “Parekh” among the Jews] Volksgezunr 2 (March 1923): 1.

On the use and abuse of X-rays as a medical treatment in general, see Hayter C. R. R. , “The Clinic as Laboratory: The Case of Radiation Therapy, 1896–1920,” Bulletin of the History of Medicine 72, no. 4 (1998): 663–688; Herzig R. , “In the Name of Science: Suffering, Sacrifice, and the Formation of American Roentgenology,” American Quarterly 53, no. 4 (2001): 563–589.

See Davidovitch Margalit , supra note 5, at 129.

See Hadassah Medical Organization, Twenty Years of Medical Services in Palestine, 1918–1938, report issued by the Hadassah Medical Organization, May 9, 1939 (Jerusalem: Achvah Co-op Printing Press Ltd., 1940): At 110–111, 182.

Borowy I. Davidovitch N. , “Health in Palestine: 1850–2000,” Dynamis 25 (2005): 315–327.

See, for example, Williams D. I. Marten R. H. Sarkany I. , “Preliminary Communication: Oral Treatment of Ringworm with Griseofulvin,” The Lancet 272, no. 7058 (1958): 1212–1213.

Modan B. Editorial , “An Increase of Thyroid Tumors Ahead?” [Ribui Shel Se'etot Balutot Hatris Baderech?] Harefuah 88, no. 11 (1975): 541.

See Modan B. Baidatz D. Mart H. Steinitz R. Levin S. G. , “Radiation-Induced Head and Neck Tumours,” The Lancet 1, no. 7852 (February 23, 1974): 277–279. The same Modan wrote years later in an editorial titled “A Local Blood Libel” on the false accusation of the health care system in practicing prejudice and discrimination toward “Oriental” immigrants, especially related to the accusation of taking Yemenite children for adoption without the knowledge of their parents who were told that they had died. See Modan B. , “A Local Blood Libel,” [Alilat Dam Mekomit] Harefuah 131, nos. 5–6 (1996): 168–169. Modan's estimation of about 20,000 was clearly wrong, as he was not aware of many children irradiated in transit camps outside Israel and of Israeli Arabs who were also screened and irradiated; see reference note 2. Personal communication with Dr. Sigal Sadezki, Head of Epidemiology of Cancer Unit, Gertner Institute, Sheba Medical Center.

See Davidovitch Margalit , supra note 19, at 132.

For two recent analyses of these issues, see Shenhav Y. , The Arab Jews: Nationalism, Religion and Ethnicity (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2006); Shalom Chetrit S. , ha-Ma'avak ha-mizrahi be-Israel:, 1948–2003 [Mizrahi Struggle in Israel, 1948–2003] (Tel Aviv: Am Oved, 2004).

The movie “The Ringworm Children,” directed by David Belachsun and Asher Hamias, depicts the story of the irradiation with interviews with several activists from the Ringworm Victims Assocation. The movie, which won a prize at the Haifa International Film Festival in 2003, deals with what the producers called the “Holocaust” of those irradiated.

Sociological research has provided abundant evidence as to the existence of numerous factors that delay and even prevent the filing of lawsuits by victims; see May M. L. Stengel D. B. , “Who Sues Their Doctors? How Patients Handle Medical Grievances,” Law & Society Review 105 (1990): 24.

In dismissing some of the tort claims, the court ruled that where irradiation had been performed by the Jewish Agency or the Health Funds, the plaintiff had no cause of action against the State. See Motion (Haifa) 356/95 The Jewish Agency v. Turgeman , 96 (2) Tek-Mach 781. This reasoning is questionable, as the actions of the Jewish Agency abroad in assisting immigrants to immigrate or the actions of the Health Funds among new immigrants in Israel were all performed to a great extent on behalf of the State.

The Compensation for Victims of Ringworm Law, 1994 S.H. 1478.

This view was most eloquently presented in the movie “The Ringworm Children,” supra note 28, as well as in some articles published in Israeli daily journals. See, for example, Dayan A. , “Ringworm Compensation? Only If It Is a Deadly Tumor,” Haaretz, July 30, 2004, available at <https://www.haaretz.co.il/> (last visited May 29, 2008).