Five people received organ transplants from the late Yigal Yehoshua, who died on Monday. Yehoshua was struck in the head by Arab rioters in Lod last week and was rushed to Shamir Medical Center in critical condition, where he was treated in the intensive care unit. After he was declared dead, his family agreed to donate his organs.
The transplants were performed in four hospitals: Sheba Medical Center in Ramat Gan, Belinson Hospital in Petah Tikvah, Ichilov Hospital in Tel Aviv, and Hadassah Medical Center’s Ein Kerem campus in Jerusalem.
Both of Yehoshua’s lungs were transplanted into a 69-year-old man at Beilinson Hospital. One of his kidneys was transplanted into a 67-year-old man at Beilinson; his other kidney was transplanted into a 58-year-old woman at Hadassah Medical Center. His liver was transplanted into a 22-year-old woman at Ichilov Hosptial and his heart was transplanted into a 49-year-old patient at Sheba Medical Center.
The 58-year-old who received Yehoshua’s kidney is an Arab woman from Beit Safafa, an Arab town that spans East and West Jerusalem. The woman, identified as Randa, told the Israeli news website Walla: “We work and live with Jews, and we did not expect such a war. For us, Yigal is part of our family. We want all the chaos to calm down so that we can all live peacefully side by side.”
Zion Cohen, from Nahariya, who received both of Yehoshua’s lungs after waiting five years for a transplant, said: “The Yehoshua family is a noble family. Whoever saves one life, it is as though he saved an entire world,” referring to the Talmudic precept.
