In the winter of 1953, the international Jewish philanthropic organizations, the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee (JDC) and Oeuvres Secours des Enfants (OSE), conducted the “Mass Trachoma Project” in one square block of Casablanca’s mellah (Jewish quarter). The infectious eye disease trachoma was endemic throughout North Africa, and was doubly marked: first, as a disease of poor hygiene and primitive culture owing to its particular etiology; and second, as a “blinding scourge of the East,” as a result of its prevalence in the Arab world. The “Mass Trachoma Project” was emblematic of the disease control campaigns that characterized international health in the postwar period implemented through new technical interventions, such as antibiotics. Indeed, JDC efforts were concurrent with World Health Organization (WHO) anti-trachoma campaigns in Morocco, and mimicked its practices while paying heed to new currents of social medicine. As medical restrictions on immigration to Israel ended, this campaign not only served to cure Jews prior to their anticipated departure, but also to present the JDC as an international organization on a par with the WHO that participated in health development. Using material from the World Health Organization archives, the JDC archives, and medical publications, my paper will analyze why trachoma in North Africa captured the JDC’s attention during the 1950s, and how their response fit within a global conversation. I claim that a historical investigation of Jewish anti-trachoma efforts in Morocco foregrounds often overlooked actors of postwar colonial medicine, and demonstrates how international Jewish philanthropic organizations took part in shaping global health priorities.