We need our roots, a feeling of familiar routine in familiar surroundings. Even a long-awaited change with its many anticipated benefits – if it necessitates moving to a different neighborhood, it’s a hard adjustment. So what about a move that has no benefits, that was not planned for, that came as a traumatic shock on that horrendous day of October 7th?
Ever so grateful to have their lives spared, so many found themselves crowded into new places of residence, far away from the comfortable security of what they had called home. New routines, new neighbors, new clothing. Even new walls shouting ‘Refugee!’ each morning as they opened their eyes. Ezer Mizion, other organizations and the community at large has rallied in a most generous way and provided for their basic needs, even extras to help in the psychological pain that now colors their lives. But it is still so very hard.
And then there are the heroes. They, too, feel rootless, their lives upended. They, too, have lost the anchor of security, a basic need of humanity. But through a window named Compassion, they are able to see out of their current suffering into the suffering of others.
Meet Michael and Daniel who came to the Ezer Mizion Farajun Stem Cell Collection Center on the same day, to donate their stem cells and save lives
Both have been away from their homes in northern Israel for eight months now.
Daniel was evacuated from Zarit, where he left a family business that included a herd of sheep and a chicken coop. He moved with his family to a farm in a safer area and has been serving ever since in the IDF reserves.
Michael was evacuated from Kiryat Shemoneh, where he left a pizza store and a grocery business. Since the beginning of the war, he has been housed in a hotel in Eilat.
Both evacuee heroes are living an abnormal reality. Yet they each stepped out of their personal situations and came to Ezer Mizion to save the lives of two people who they know nothing about. We salute them and their families and hope for their quick return to the places they still call home!
In spite of the war and all that it entailed, Ezer Mizion is both proud and humbled to report that the Bone Marrow Registry continues to save lives. In June, the number was 43. Forty-three patients who had been terrified that their lives were about to end, forty-three families who had barely allowed themselves to hope…now dancing amid tears of joy. Because you with your generosity of heart have enabled the Registry to grow and grow. Please continue your support so that each request from oncology clinics around the globe receives the triumphant response of Yes! We have a match!
