Community Searches for Kidney Donor

CROWN HEIGHTS [CHI] — On Sunday, last week, was an event taken place by the Chesed Center of Ahavas Chesed, headed by Rabbi Lider. It was an experimental event to try to find a match for a kidney donation for one of the residents in our community, Crown Heights. This resident is a father of 9 children that needs urgently a kidney transplant. He is going 3 times a week to dialysis and the doctors are saying that the dialysis is not helping anymore and he needs a transplant.

Rabbi Lider brought an organization called Renewal, which started 3 years ago to help Jews that urgently need kidney transplant. Renewal is a legal organization and tries to match donors and recipients. The donors are Jews that are ready to donate their kidney, without any compensation, to save a relative or someone else’s life.

On this event that took place on 24 of Teves (Jan.,10 2010) came close to a 100 people that wanted to donate their kidney to save a life of this fellow that lives in our neighborhood ( Crown Heights). Renewal explain to them the process of donating a kidney, spoke with doctors, did a blood exam required to determine if there is a match ( this fellow needs a blood type A or O). Also people that already donated came and one Lubavitcher that doesn’t want his name mention, father of a one month old baby that donated his kidney to another Jew just for the Mitzva of “saving a life is like saving the whole World”. He said that he fells good, physically and spiritually, and he is happy that he saved someone’s life, a Jewish fellow from The Bronx. Also came to this event a woman, her name is Leah. She is 36 years old, mother of six, that decided to donated to her kidney because her mother had died of a complicated kidney disease and a match was not found. Leah came with her husband and six children and thanked the people that came, that is a good deed to donate a kidney and if someone could donated she encourages very much. She also said that the operation is not so hard and the recovery is relatively easy, that she came back to regular schedule in two weeks.

One of the heads of Renewal, Moshe Steinmetz, did not believe the response that the residents of Crown Heights give to this event and their willingness to donate a kidney to another Jew. Also he is very happy to see the numbers of volunteers that are willing to donate to someone else if they are not match to the above resident of Crown Heights.