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Israel will today break a world record of one thousand kidney donations in a decade.

This is the story of 3 of them

Sheri Moskowitz heard about a woman who underwent difficult dialysis treatments, and decided to donate her kidney.

Her mother came to Israel to help her take care of the children, so she decided to make a life-saving donation herself - and later the twin sister joined.

Chairman of Matanat Chaim: "This is a revolution on every scale"

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• Kidney donation

• organ donation

Yaki Adamkar

Sunday, 04 April 2021, 09:00

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They all donated a kidney.

Members of the Moskowitz family (Photo: courtesy of the photographers, courtesy of the photographers)

39 years ago, the twins Sheri and Nava were born into the Moskowitz family.

From that moment on, they went through a similar life path, growing up in the religious community in the West Hampstead neighborhood of New York, attending school together and living an almost common life.

What they never imagined was that there would come a day when they would both decide together to donate a kidney and an artist would also be part of the circle of donation.

Sherry currently lives in Israel, in Neve Daniel, and was actually the first to think of the idea to donate.

"It was one day, when a message came to me from the locality's mailing list," she recalls.

"It says that there is a friend of someone who is undergoing difficult dialysis treatments and needs a kidney. At that moment I thought to myself that I might be able to help her. After all, I am relatively young and in good health, so why not?"

"I did not know anyone around me who donated," she surprises.

"I also did not know anyone who was ill. Just when I read the message I realized that there is someone behind it who is in distress, and the first insight was that I may have a chance. Myself: 'Why do I invest so much to be in good health?'. True I need it for myself, but maybe someone else can enjoy it too? ".

"Hence the decision to donate. When I turned to a woman who was looking for the donation, it became clear to me that she lived in the United States at all. At first I thought it would not stop me from donating to her, because my parents live in New York and I can have the surgery abroad.

Then it turned out that it would not be so simple, and in the end the idea was dropped for other reasons. "

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"She announced that she would be coming to Israel specifically to help me."

Sheri Moskowitz and her mother (Photo: courtesy of the photographers, courtesy of the photographers)

But for Cherry, that was just the beginning of the story.

"Two weeks later I flew abroad regardless of donation, and when I met my mother I told her I wanted to donate and added that I was thinking of contacting the 'Gift of Life' organization to contact me with another patient.

I also told her that my only concern is that there will be no one to help my husband with the kids at home during the time I am donating.

Thank God I have five sweet children, and it is not possible to place the burden on my husband, especially since at the same time he will also have to take care of me, since I will be after surgery. "For a

response like that of her mother Cherry did not expect." Mother not only encouraged, but announced that she "You will come to Israel especially to help me during the operation and to be with the children," she recalls. "After a few days, she also informed me of another thing - she intends to join the mission and donate a kidney as well.

Since then, we both started the process at the same time, when we went through all the tests together, only that my mother went through them abroad and I - in Israel. "

"In the United States, the process required for a kidney donation is a little different," explains Freddie Moskowitz, a twin artist.

"In the first stage, I had to do a test with a pen and send it by mail to the organization that connects patients and donors. In the meantime, I was asked if I was interested in donating to someone, and at the same time I received an email similar to the one my daughter received from me. "55 years ago. She wrote that she sent the email to everyone she knew in her life, and then went on to say that her sister-in-law needed a kidney and was looking for a donor. In the end, I was found suitable and I did donate to her."

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"I decided to join too."

Sisters Sherry and Nava Moskowitz (Photo: courtesy of the photographers, courtesy of the photographers)

"For me, it was the 'Gift of Life' organization that mediated between me and the transplant recipient," says Sherry.

"I was told at the beginning that my transplant was 37 years old, from the center of the country. These were the only data I knew about her. But then we met at a committee of the Ministry of Health and met for the first time."

According to her, the meeting was quite entertaining.

"I was sitting in the waiting room for the honor committee, which was supposed to examine my willingness to donate, next to me sat a woman my age and I was sure that she too like me is a candidate to donate a kidney and comes for similar reasons. We started talking and she said she is 37 and lives in the center The operation in March at Hadassah Hospital. While we were talking, I realized that she was not donating at all, but was about to receive a kidney, and most amazingly - it turned out that I was the one who was supposed to donate to her. "Suddenly there was a figure behind the donation, there was a woman waiting."

The surgery date set for Sherry was March 15, 2020 - the day the world stopped reigning.

The corona then burst into our lives and the surgeries stopped.

"Mom managed to get to Israel to be with me, as she promised, but it was not necessary, because the surgery was postponed," explains Sherry.

"On the other hand, she could not return abroad because there were no flights.

Thus she remained in Israel for about a month and a half, when even Dad could not join her.

"Mother was also constantly worried that she would not go abroad in time to undergo her surgery. In the end, her surgery was also postponed, so in that sense she was actually tidy."

But just after Freddie returned abroad, Sherry was given a date for a new operation, and her mother, who had just completed two weeks' isolation due to her return from Israel, boarded a plane again on her way to Israel, where she went through another period of isolation. And the recovery, and she helped me very, very much, "Cherry is excited." Then she went back abroad and about a month later she underwent the surgery herself. "

Kidney donors from the "Gift of Life" organization (Photo: Courtesy of those photographed, Moshe Hausdorf)

But the story of Cherry and her mother also has a third part - this is Nava Hess, Cherry's twin sister.

She currently resides in New Jersey and has not waived the right to donate as well.

"It's the most exciting feeling in the world," she says.

"I hardly breathe out of excitement. It happened following my sister and my mother. Just like that," she continues.

"As soon as I heard that my mother and sister were donating, I decided that I too would join. I told myself that if they could then so could I."

Nava, unlike her sister and mother, does not know to whom she is donating the kidney.

"I was told that he was a 37-year-old Jew, but I asked not to hear more details about him. I think even after the operation I would prefer not to know him. I feel this is more true for both of us. My goal is to save lives, and I can fulfill that without knowing the transplant recipient."

In her profession, Nava works as a teacher.

"I did not share with the children that I was going to donate, but their parents probably told them, and when I arrived at the kindergarten the last day before hospitalization, everyone surrounded me with curiosity and interested in surgery. They were so excited and saw it as a natural and understandable thing - I take an unnecessary kidney and move "For those who need it. This is the message I want to convey to those who read our story - if you look at it in a simple way, you see how logical, clear and natural it is."

"The effort really isn't great, and in return you get a whole life."

The Moskowitz family (Photo: courtesy of the photographers, courtesy of the photographers)

Sherry also has an important message: "Only when a few weeks pass from the donation and see how life goes on without any change, do you understand the magnitude of the matter. Because the effort is really not great, and in return you get a whole life. I did not come to say it is easy, but it is not as difficult as Who think. "

Freddie the mother, wants to contact the older donors instead.

She said, "There are those who shy away from donating in old age, but I am 63 years old and for a moment I did not feel old enough to donate. Once all the tests were normal, my age sounded very appropriate to donate, and in some ways it was much easier for me than my daughters. There are children in the house who need her. "

She also notes with a smile that "this coming summer Sherry is going to come to us and we will finally meet the three of us together. We will be able to sit for the first time with only three kidneys, but with perfect happiness in our hearts."

The man behind the revolution

Today (Sunday) there will be four altruistic kidney transplants in Israel by donors who donate an organ from their bodies to people they do not know and save their lives.

The four will lead Israel to a place no country has reached before: a thousand altruistic kidney donations in the last ten years.

The contribution of the millennium is especially moving in light of the fact that it takes place just one week from the first anniversary of the death of the founder of “Gift of Life,” the man behind the revolution who died a year ago from Corona.

Rabbi Yeshayahu Haber himself was kidney transplanted and decided to dedicate his life to locating donors for his friends on dialysis.

After seeing that he was successful in this, he set up an association whose whole purpose is to recruit kidney donors who will save the lives of dialysis patients.

Until his death, 800 people donated kidneys, and since his death exactly one year ago, another 200 have donated kidneys, some in his memory.

The association is now continued by his wife Rachel, who on the days of Shiva announced that her husband had passed away but the association would not cease its activities and she hired them for the job until the waiting list was eliminated.

Dedicated his life to finding donors.

Rabbi Yeshayahu Haber (Photo: Yotam Ronen)

"Gift of Life" has contributed to Israel leading the world in animal kidney donations, and according to the data it publishes ahead of the thousandth transplant day, the revolution is still in its infancy.

"In 2009 when my husband founded the association, there were almost no kidney donors, and people did not know what it is to donate a kidney and how to do it," she told Walla!

Rachel Haber, chairman of the association.

"After a year of activity - we already had four kidney donors in Israel that year and we felt that, God willing, my husband would express himself and say that then we felt we had reached the summit of Everest, but today, 12 years later, in 2020 181 people donated And a kidney woman for people who do not know.

This is a revolution on every scale, but we have over a thousand more men and women who need and are looking for a kidney donor for themselves right now and are suffering greatly in dialysis wards, and unfortunately there is an increase in kidney patients in the Western world, so we expect many patients to join. "As many altruistic kidney donors as possible who will save the lives of patients who are really waiting to save their lives."

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