Dr. Jakov Sarafic was born in 1905 in Banja Luka, to mother Safira Sarafic-Sumbul and father Isidor Sarafic-Salom. His closest family also included his brothers: David, Joseph, and Samuel. His parents are victims of the Holocaust. His mother was killed in a concentration camp in Stara Gradishka, and his father in Jasenovac.

He graduated from the Faculty of Medicine in Vienna in 1931 and joined the National Liberation War (NOB) in 1941. He participated in the work of the illegal health service in Skopje where he treated wounded and sick partisans and was sending medical supplies to the partisans. The Health Board in Skopje, despite the frequent identifications and arrests of some of its members, supporters of the National Liberation War, did work and was carrying out its tasks at all stages of development of the sanitary service throughout the war. The sanitary material was collected in various ways and stored in secret warehouses in private homes. There was also a network of private houses and apartments that served to treat injured partisans from the squad that was active on Skopska Crna Gora. The treatment in private homes was taking place in a strictly conspiratorial manner. Among the doctors who performed treatment in the occupied Skopje, Dr. Jakov Sarafic and Dr. Dimitar Miovski stood out.

In 1942, Dr. Jakov Sarafic was discovered by the Bulgarian fascists and interned in Bulgaria. After the capitulation of fascist Bulgaria, in October 1944 he returned to Yugoslavia and joined the National Liberation War. At the session of the Anti-Fascist Assembly of Macedonia (ASNOM), he was elected a member of Parliament and was also the head of the sanitary service of the Macedonian division of KNOJ.

He passed away in Belgrade in 1997.