This past summer, bar mitzvah boy Omri Attia was called up to the Torah for the first time, at the Kosel. His faced wreathed in smiles, with tefillin adorning his head and right arm, Omri’s voice rang our resoundingly as he made the Brachos on the Torah.

His hand on his head to keep his kippa from falling off Omri matter-of-factly commented: “I don’t have hair to keep my kippa on my head.” Omri went up to the Wall, where he placed a Kvittel asking Hashem for “a complete recovery for the entire Jewish people.”

Omri, who lives in Holon with his parents and two brothers, Dvir and Amichai, recently finished seventh grade. But he did not enter eighth grade when school started in September. Instead, he is fighting for his life.

September 2007

Last year Omri began experiencing severe headaches. A blood test revealed that the boy had been struck by leukemia. In January, he was hospitalized at Schneider Children’s Hospital in Petach Tikvah. Unfortunately, the treatment has not succeeded in beating the disease. Doctors have advised that a stem cell transplant from a genetically compatible donor offers the only chance to save Omri’s life. His doctors turned to Ezer Mizion’s Bone Marrow Donor Registry, Israel’s National Registry, which includes 300,000 potential donors and has to date saved the lives of over 300 cancer patients around the world. Sadly, a suitable match for Omri has not yet been found. Expanding the Registry offers the only chance to save Omri’s life!

In a race against time, efforts to find a suitable donor were conducted with the recruitment of potential donors on IDF bases and at university campuses.  No matches were found.

November 2007

Ezer Mizion’s Bone Marrow Registry undertook a major campaign to help save Omri’s life. A nationwide bone marrow donor recruitment drive was held throughout Israel on November 21 – 11 Kislev in search of a matching donor. The more people that underwent blood testing, the greater the chance was of finding a match for Omri and for Jewish patients everywhere who are waiting for a lifesaving transplant!

31,000 Join the Registry!

In a massive outpouring of concern and caring 31,000 people turned up at collection stations on November 21, joining Ezer Mizion’s one-day nationwide donor recruitment drive throughout Israel. They each gave a small sample of blood and joined Ezer Mizion’s Registry in the hope that they would be the one to save Omri’s life.

The flow of people eager to join the registry continued non-stop all day long at the collection stations. The mammoth outpouring of concern and desire to help displayed the beautiful side of a society that in recent years has been driven by ideological and political strife.  All sectors of the population united in one common goal – to save Omri’s life.

The 31,000 blood samples collected were immediately dispatched to laboratories for tissue typing, in the hope of finding a genetically-compatible donor for Omri and other cancer patients around the world awaiting stem cell transplants.

Omri’s Chanukah Miracle

At a moving press conference that took place on Chanukah, 18 days after the major bone marrow donor recruitment drive that Ezer Mizion coordinated throughout Israel, news of Omri Attiya’s personal Chanukah miracle was announced. A matching stem cell donor has been found among the 31,000 people who joined the registry two and a half weeks earlier at the drive and the transplant that will – please G-d – save Omri’s life is being scheduled.

Ezer Mizion Founder and International Chairman, Chananya Chollak, addressed the media: “It is not mere coincidence that Omri’s miracle happened on Chanukah, during days that have been filled with miracles for the Jewish nation. We are gratified by the outpouring of concern and caring that united the Jewish nation in a massive combined effort to save Omri’s life. We are deeply grateful to the A-lmighty that He has graced our efforts with success. We hope to be able to help many other patients all over the world in their struggle for life, by matching them with suitable bone marrow donors.”

Sincere Thanks

On behalf of Omri and his parents and in the name of other cancer patients, Dr. Bracha Zisser, Director of Ezer Mizion’s Registry, thanked all those who made the effort to join the Registry at the November 21 drive, as well as those who actively helped at the drive and those who generously sponsored the enormous cost of tissue typing the samples collected.

Omri joins 326 other cancer patients from all over the world for whom a matching donor was found and whose lives were saved by Ezer Mizion’s Bone Marrow Registry. Along with Omri, another five cancer patients have been matched by donors who joined the Registry at the recent drive.

(Ezer Mizion)