Five years ago, Yaniv Dahan called his wife Orit in the middle of the day and told her: “I am coming to pick you up, we are going to the sea.” “I was very surprised, I was sure it was something romantic,” she says. But Yaniv, then 39, had other plans. “I decided to donate a kidney,” he informed her. Orit was in the market. “We were a relatively young couple, four children. The youngest was two years old at the time and the eldest a little before the bar mitzvah.”
“It fell on me like a thunderbolt on a clear day. For a moment I did not think he was serious. Yaniv is one who faints from a blood test. I was sure that after the first stab he would forget about it.” But Yaniv did not forget. On the contrary, he decided he was going for it to the end.
Yaniv Dahan
(Private photography)
Yaniv (44) and Orit (39) are a well-known Haredi couple in Bnei Brak. Orit works for an insurance company and Yaniv is an infrastructure and development contractor. They have four children, and another on the way. Even today, five years later, Yaniv still does not believe it happened to him. “The very thought of donating a kidney to someone was a dream for me.”
“This whole section of giving is very exciting to me. For me, the most important point is that after my twentieth century, I will know that I have left a mark, that I have done something good in this world.”
Sorry for the cynicism, but what is urgent for a family man at the height of his life to donate a kidney?
“Many have asked me this question and the answer is probably related to things that happened a few years earlier. It turned out I knew some friends who were related to a kidney donation. One donated to his son, a failed donation, and the other needed a transplant. Their cases blew my mind. Thanks to them I was exposed to this whole issue. “For the first time. Before that I had no idea.”
One event, exciting, is engraved in it in particular. “The night before the surgery of another good friend of mine who was about to donate a kidney, I went to a meeting with him and his donor. Usually it’s anonymous, but in this case, they intuited each other in the hospital and made the link. At this event there were songs, guitars, and lots more. “Tears. My heart expanded, I lit up. I left knowing it was what I was going to do.”
Time passed, and so far nothing has progressed. “I’m a little lazy,” says Yaniv. “If I have an appointment with a doctor it will take me half a year, but today I know that things that happened led me to it, there are no coincidences.”
When one of his good friends fell ill and needed treatment in Boston, Yaniv decided to accompany him. “We were there for a month, and one day we were stuck in a cruel snowstorm, minus 17 degrees. In such situations, Blessed is He who is with you. I called my brother who lives in New York and he offered to come and stay with his brother-in-law Tomer in Monsey, with the whole family.”
“That Saturday, Tomer and I went for a short walk in the snow after dinner, dog cold, and he tells me he was going to donate a kidney. This is the first time I have met someone who is going to do such an altruistic act, just by giving. The thought of donating a kidney made me immensely excited. “I made a decision for a moment. I said to myself, ‘As soon as I get to Israel, I go for it.”
When he returned to Israel, time stretched again, and he did nothing about it. “One day I went to the doctor to get medical clearance for increasing my motorcycle license,” he recalls. “Just before I left the room, I turned around and asked him to make me a list of all the kidney tests needed before the transplant. He was in the market.”
According to the Association for the Advancement and Preservation of the Rights of Kidney Patients, any organ donation is conditional on the approval of a committee on behalf of the Ministry of Health. The kidney donor must be a close family member, spouse or acquaintance, and he or she must be examined by a physician to make sure his or her kidney function is normal and his or her health condition allows him or her to donate.
Did not officially contact anyone?
“The doctor suggested I talk to someone, go to the committee, apply in an orderly fashion, but I persuaded him to give me a list of tests, and I left with all the referrals.”
The papers remained lying on the motorcycle, but then Orit asked him one day to take the girl to the dentist. “I usually don’t have time for that, but this time I went. While the girl was waiting in line, I went to the secretary and showed her the referrals. She immediately realized it was a kidney donation test. If I had known in advance how much blood they should have taken me, I probably would not have done it. Maybe ten test tubes were taken from me. “
When he finished his blood tests, he discovered that there was an appointment for an ultrasound as well. “I went in. If I was already there, I wanted to make it as far as possible.” That same day he called his two best friends and shared them. “Ezri, a friend of mine, told me ‘do you want to donate a kidney? Please, but you must tell your wife about it.'”
For a moment you did not think about the risks?
“I am not a person who thinks of risks, as soon as I decide, that is. I have believed and I believe with complete faith that there is no situation in which the Blessed One stabs you, and also turns the knife.”
And what did Orit say?
“She told me, you’re crazy, but I’m with you.”
On Friday, just before Shabbat began, he decided to go to the HMO website and see if a decipherment had arrived. “I have read the scripture, and my eyes shall be darkened.” He says. “It was written that a lump 8 cm in diameter had been observed on the main artery of the kidney and a CT scan was recommended.”
Friday in ultra-Orthodox society is a short day. “My heart went down to my floor. Friday, there is no one to talk to, I already saw myself dead. Orit called our family doctor, and he said an appointment should be made with an urgent specialist. I called my friends, they are connected to the whole world, they got me Rabbi Yeshayahu Haber, founder of Matanat Chaim. He already knew about my case and got involved immediately. I sent him the decipherment and then I learned that he immediately sent him to the doctor he works with in Switzerland. “That’s how Shabbat came in with this question mark, no one tells me what it means, I have no idea if it’s a cancerous growth or not. You can imagine what Shabbat it was.”
On Saturday night, a whole chamal started at home. “Rabbi Firer heard that I wanted to donate a kidney and took it personally. He recommended going to a specialist who would decipher the test. “Fortunately, I know Yossi Margalit, an ultra-Orthodox medical activist who helps people advance matters medically, and he made an appointment with me for a doctor immediately on Sunday.”
The doctor carefully examined the ultrasound results. “He told me I had a huge tumor in the kidney area, and I told him, ‘Fine, I understand I’m going to die,’ and go out to smoke a cigarette and try to pick myself up. ‘
Did you know if the tumor is cancerous?
“I asked him if the tumor was cancerous and his answer was, ‘I do not know, but surely your God loves you, well they discovered it in time.’ It turns out to be cancerous or non-cancerous – someday this tumor would have blocked the main artery and I would have died immediately of a brain aneurysm. Either way, this tumor would have killed me. “
What are you going through at that moment?
“I have already seen my children crying over me, my wife Orit is crying over me, I have already imagined my funeral. All the most horrible scenarios went through my mind.”
The next few days passed in anxiety. “I did not share the family, only those who should. I remember that the late Hani Weinroth, who herself died of cancer three years ago, told me, ‘Yaniv, be calm, you have no cancer.’ Hani knew cancer closely, as a writer, she has published many articles on her coping with the disease. I did not understand on what basis she was saying this but she was so sure. ‘Whoever has cancer has cancer,’ she told me, ‘you have none.’ It was one of the few bright spots that gave me hope and optimism at the time. “
Rabbi Firer referred Yaniv to Professor Yosef Klausner, then director of the Ichilov Surgical Division. “We were warned that he was a serious man, but the click between us was immediate,” says Yaniv. “To this day we correspond and I call him my lover.”
Mr. Klausner reviewed the test results. “He said I had a beautiful, round, large, intact tumor, with no metastases. I almost suspected he was excited about it,” says Yaniv. “I told him Doctor, leave now a beautiful or not beautiful growth – please tell me if I am alive or dead.”
Klausner recommended rapid surgery to remove the tumor. “He reassured me and said I was in good shape, doing sports, and that everything would be fine.”
Rosh Hashanah was imminent, so, with the doctor’s consent and after consultation with the family, it was decided to postpone the operation to the day after Rosh Hashanah (“We call it Gedalia fasting”), to allow Yaniv to spend the holiday with his family.
How is this holiday going for you, before the surgery?
“It was the most beautiful holiday of my life. We spent the holiday in Jerusalem, and on the second day I walked with my father-in-law to the hawk prayer at the Western Wall. On Rosh Hashanah there is a prayer called ‘And gave validity’, who will live, and who will die ‘- every word has meaning. In front of the Western Wall and shed tears on the stones. Tomorrow the operation, I have no idea if it is a cancerous growth, a lot of questions. It was not just written, ‘Kidney and heart examiner’. “.
“As soon as I was lying on the operating table, I suddenly had an understanding of what had happened,” he recalled. The surgery, which should have taken about two and a half hours, lasted almost five hours. “After I woke up, I realized they had a little surprise.”
What do you mean?
“After opening the abdomen and removing the tumor, Prof. Klausner discovered another small tumor in the main artery of the kidney. He decided not to just remove it but to remove the entire kidney, clean it properly, and then transplant it back to me.”
The next morning, Prof. Klausner went to Yaniv’s bed. “I will never forget the sentence he said to me after the surgery: I am an atheist but you touched me. You wanted to donate a kidney, and you donated it to yourself.”
The removed tumor was sent for pathology, and returned benign. “The first thing I asked him was if I could donate a kidney. He told me to talk to him in five years.”
Did you talk?
“We are in touch all the time, but this year, on Rosh Hashanah, exactly five years after I sent him a message in this language: ‘Happy New Year and good morning my love. Do not forget and I will not forget. Today five years ago I reached your hands. Everywhere possible I am proud to have reached these hands. May God give you the strength to continue to do only good things as only you know. Thank you very much. “He wrote me an amazing and heartwarming answer.”
Rachel Haber, widow of the late Rabbi Yeshayahu Haber, founder of Matanat Chaim, who died suddenly nine months ago from Corona, remembers Yaniv’s story well. “At that time we had a personal relationship with some of the donors and after Yaniv sent the results, my husband Told me he didn’t like anything, he didn’t like anything. He was very restless. “
Rachel and Isaiah the Bar
(Photo: Haim Meirsdorf)
There are currently about 5,000 dialysis patients in the country, of whom 857 are waiting for a kidney transplant, according to a summary of the annual data compiled by the National Center for Organ Transplantation at the Ministry of Health. According to Rachel, precisely in 2020, the year of the corona, there was a sharp increase in kidney transplants.
“The data for 2020 just vibrates. In the first wave, the surgeries were completely stopped for two months, and yet, ‘Gift of Life’ performed 181 transplants. This Wednesday, the last transplant of 2020 was performed. Just to understand: we finished the previous year with 135 transplants, and only In the last ten months, 181 transplants have been registered, 146 of which were performed after the death of Rabbi Haber. “
Even today, nine months after the death of Rabbi Haber, Rachel makes sure to come and meet every donor. “My husband and I were one soul in this world. Her hair did not separate us,” she says. “Together we gave birth to the ‘gift of life’ and I knew that his charity would continue after him as well. I meet the donors and tell them, you are my consolation, my husband continues to live through you.”
How many donors are in your database today?
“Today there are hundreds of donors, not all of whom will complete the process and be found suitable. It is true that most of the donors of the association are observant people, but the association is exposed and open to any person, this is the will of the late Rabbi Bar. In the past year, we have also been working hard in the Arab sector. “
“The main message is to look around us and do good, each in his own way. Yaniv for example did not physically get to donate a kidney, but he contributes and does so much good in his life.”
“The association is exposed and open to any person wherever he is.” Rabbi Yeshayahu Haber
(Photo: Itamar Rotem)
After the surgery, Yaniv became a kind of celebrity in the community and also gained interest from the ultra-Orthodox media. “What motivated me to donate before surgery is still burning in me,” he says. “Even before I was connected to the family but among myself, I understand what really matters. I wish I could contribute something. I wish every child of mine, when he reaches the age of thirty or forty, would donate a kidney.”
The ultra-Orthodox public’s response to a kidney donation – perhaps it is a kind of correction to the fact that the ultra-Orthodox public does not participate in organ donations from the dead?
“There is no connection between the two. If it were allowed to donate from the dead from a halakhic point of view, then everyone would donate willingly. In my opinion, if you are Jewish, religious or secular, it does not matter – you have the garden of giving. That’s how we are when there is an attack, when someone falls “In the street, it is our duty, it is in our gardens as Jews. Kidney donation is the gift beyond. It is truly a gift of life.”
How was your corona year in Bnei Brak?
“In the year of the Corona, everyone blackened Bnei Brak, as if people were living here without responsibility. Come here and see what is really happening. Everyone has volunteered to help adults, hard-working families, those who ask. The amount of giving and help is amazing. I am also available to those in need. “For me, shopping, showering, there is no such thing as leaving someone alone and not helping them. This is the real Bnei Brak.”
“If my story will help one person donate a kidney, I have already done something. I once again ask for gratitude to Rabbi Yeshayahu Haber, this amazing man who dedicated his life and built the largest and most important organization in the country to save lives. Of pure giving. May his memory be blessed. “
What do you say to someone who reads you and is debating whether to donate or not?
“I tell him, bro, I wish I was in your place.”