11 year-old Topaz is back in school in his hometown, Yavneh.  Despite the huge chunks of time he missed from school, he is at the top of his fifth grade class for gifted children.  And he plans to stay there!  Topaz was first diagnosed with leukemia when he was only one-and-a-half year old. He went into remission twice, but when leukemia struck for the third time, the doctors advised his family that the only hope for a cure was a stem cell transplant.

After a search request for a matching donor was made to Ezer Mizion's Bone Marrow Donor Registry, 20 year-old Uri Karin, a soldier serving in the Nachal Brigade, from Kibbutz Kfar Rupin, was found to be a matching donor.  Initial testing of Uri's blood when he joined the Registry was generously sponsored by the Brazil Community Donor Pool. The lifesaving transplant was performed in November 2006 at the Sheba Medical Center in Ramat Gan.

Until the recent meeting between Uri and Topaz, the only thing Topaz's family knew about the donor was that he is an IDF soldier. Since no information may be disclosed about the donor, they referred to him simply as "the soldier who is Topaz's blood brother." 

At the meeting, Topaz was accompanied by his grandparents, his parents, his two younger sisters, his month-old brother and an uncle. The parents described their tension and their prayers ahead of the transplant for all IDF soldiers to return home unharmed - for their son's life was intertwined with that of the donor who was in active service! 

Uri recalled how - in the period from when he was informed that he is a match until the collection of his stem cells - he was especially careful to stay healthy and to get enough sleep in order to be in top shape for the stem cell collection that preceded the transplant.  His mother could not hold back her tears nor conceal her pride over her son's noble deed, which he performed with such graciousness.

Topaz's family gave Uri a collage with photographs of the young boy during different periods of his life.  In a deeply moving speech, his mother thanked Uri "for enabling my son to live the life of a normal healthy child after so many years of serious illness and periods of isolation."