The atrocities of October 7, 2023 brought some unity to Israel, a fractured nation. They also prompted untold acts of kindness, including a surge in the number of people volunteering to save a stranger’s life, by donating a kidney.

“People want to do good things when bad things are happening,” says Judy Singer of Matnat Chaim, the Israeli charity that arranges over 200 altruistic kidney donations every year. That’s when a living person selflessly donates a healthy kidney to a stranger, for no financial benefit.

“After the complete shock of what was happening, the number of people asking to donate a kidney went off the scale,” she tells ISRAEL21c. 

“We even had people tell us they’d been in miluim [reserve IDF duty] for six months straight but that they wanted to do it after the war. We thought ‘after the war’ would be here already.”

Hundreds waiting for a kidney

Matnat Chaim (Hebrew for Gift of Life) was founded in 2009 by Rabbi Yeshayahu Heber, who had suffered kidney failure. He was devastated – and inspired – by the death of a young man called Pinchas, also on dialysis, who tragically passed away before a transplant kidney became available.

The organization he founded has since facilitated 1,775 live kidney donations. And Israel now has the world’s highest per capita rate of altruistic kidney donation. 

“There are between 900 and 1,000 people on the waiting list who are on dialysis in Israel and there are another 300 to 400 people who will be on dialysis if they don’t find a donor soon,” Singer says.

“Our goal is to be able to eliminate the waiting list in Israel for kidney donation. We’re not there yet, and it’s an uphill battle. The number of people needing a kidney donation has grown greatly in the last 20 years because people are less healthy.”

Danny’s story

Among those who chose to donate a kidney in the aftermath of October 7 is Ra’anana resident Danny Newman, who moved to Israel nine years ago from Teaneck, New Jersey. A lawyer by training, he now works as COO at a cybersecurity startup. 

God was saying: ‘You, Danny, and nobody else of the eight billion people on this planet, can do this.’

“The immediate inspiration for me was a story about Captain Avihai Mola, a young infantry officer in the Givati Brigade,” Newman tells ISRAEL21c.

“On October 7th he saved a lot of lives and killed a lot of bad guys. Somebody threw a grenade at his unit. He had enough time to yell out ‘grenade,’ which probably saved a bunch of people in his unit, but unfortunately he took the brunt of the blast,” Newman related.

“He lost kidney function and was on dialysis. There were also a number of guys who were killed in Gaza who were kidney donors. And there was a special forces officer who came out of Gaza to donate a kidney.”

Newman had served in the IDF during the First Lebanon War, but now at age 61 he knew he was not needed on the battlefield.

“So I was reading this article about Captain Mola and … I was just humbled by the sacrifice of these young superheroes. And at the end of the article, it said: ‘If you want to help, call this number.’ And so I did.”

The number connected him to Matnat Chaim and ultimately to a man needing a kidney. 

“That was way back in January. It’s a very, very long process. They check your bloods, and your urines, and ultrasounds. They want to make sure that you’re in good shape, and there’s very rigorous testing. There are social workers and psychologists and lawyers and you go in front of a panel where they grill you about why you want to do this,” he said.

The surgery was performed at Sheba Medical Center in Ramat Gan and was done laparoscopically (minimally invasive keyhole surgery). 

“They put gas in there to expand your abdomen, and they take out the kidney – it weighs about 200 grams – and leave you with a scar about the size of a C-section around the pelvis. For the first month or so, you’re not allowed to lift anything over five kilo. But now, six weeks on, I’m able to lift things,” he said.

“That area is still a bit sensitive. It feels like I have a sunburn, but other than that I’m back to doing stuff that I did beforehand.”

‘Let’s do stuff that unites us’

“We’ve all been so traumatized by October 7,” Newman said. “It brought us together, but I think we’re trending back down towards not being united, so my feeling was, let’s just do more stuff that unites us.

“When you’re presented with an opportunity to do a mitzvah [commandment, good deed] like this, the first thing that you should do is have the gratitude that you’re on the giving end rather than the receiving end,” he said.

“God was saying: ‘You, Danny, and nobody else of the eight billion people on this planet, can do this.’ 

Newman describes the recipient, Amir Cohen, 57, as “a phenomenal guy. He has two kids who are doing miluim and he’d been on dialysis every night for three years. 

“After the operation I didn’t really feel the need to meet him, but Susan, my wife, said: ‘Schmuck, you’re meeting this guy because it’s important for him to thank you.’ And you could see that it really was. He was so grateful.

“He told me, ‘I haven’t urinated in three years, and I haven’t slept in three years.’ 

“Patients on dialysis feel like a rag after the treatment. Dialysis circulates your blood outside of your body and puts it back in, so it’s like you run a marathon every day,” Newman added.

“Amir says his new kidney is great — although he had a setback because he fell and broke his femur.” 

As for Captain Mola, he received a kidney in March, two months after the article appeared. 

“But there are still a lot of people out there who are waiting for kidneys,” Newman emphasizes.

Matnam Chaim has a 30-second quiz for people who want to check if they’re potential altruistic kidney donors.