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Give life
in death
I enjoyed Cynthia Dettelbach’s
column “Orthodox community rallies around man in quest of
kidney” (CJN, Jan. 20) about Stuart Greenberg and the gittah
neshamah who gave him a kidney and a new lease on
life.
I hope this tremendous gift will bring them both
long and happy lives.
I’m the wife of the “other”
Stuart, the one in New York, mentioned in the story. Ms.
Dettelbach also mentioned an organization started by Fred
Taub, neshama.org. After creating a website in 2004 to help my
husband find a donor (Nearly 1,000 people contacted me or the
hospital, and 120 were tested), Mr. Taub launched neshama when
he saw that he could use his talent to help save more
lives.
I encourage CJN readers to visit his site and
learn of others in need. The “Stuarts” were lucky. But 17
people die every day waiting for a vital organ transplant.
More than 63,000 are waiting for a kidney right now. Jews,
sadly, have a poor track record of becoming organ donors in
death. There is a lot of misinformation about halachah (Jewish
law) and organ donation. If more of us were card-carrying
organ donors, people like my husband and Mr. Greenberg
wouldn’t be looking to the living to part with one of
theirs.
The Halachic Organ Donor Society was founded in
New York to educate Jews on this most important mitzvah -
organ donation in both life and death. Visit hods.org and
learn more. To see the selflessness demonstrated by my
husband’s donor and Mr. Greenberg’s donor while still very
much alive, it would be selfish indeed to deny someone an
organ in death. The person denied could be you - or your
child.
Jennifer
Zimmer
Cleveland
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