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Message: <br /><br /> If you are having trouble reading this email, you may view this article online at: http://www.jweekly.com/18189/full/18189/survivor-of-leukemia-brings-gift-of-life-to-israeli-boy/ <br /><br /> <b>Survivor of leukemia brings ‘gift of life’ to Israeli boy</b> <br /> Friday, July 26, 2002 | by <p>MAX HEUERJewish Telegraphic Agency </p> <br /><br /><p>In addition to the excruciating chemotherapy treatments, he knows, are the long periods of waiting.<br /><br /> It took Feinberg four years to find a bone marrow donor. After the transplant he waited for weeks in isolation, watching and praying as his blood count rose slowly, a tenth of a percentage at a time.<br /><br /> Now, someone in Israel is waiting for him.<br /><br /> A 7-year-old boy with acute leukemia is praying a cooler he was scheduled to receive from New York on Wednesday holds his cure.<br /><br /> Feinberg, 33, founder and executive director of the Gift of Life Bone Marrow Registry in Delray Beach, Fla., is delivering the harvested bone marrow personally.<br /><br /> "We are trying to make a statement that, despite the terror that occurs on a daily basis, there are people still willing to save a life," Feinberg says.<br /><br /> Gift of Life, which began as a campaign to save Feinberg's life, has grown into an organization dedicated to finding matching donors for Jews around the world. Its registry is made up of 70,000 entries, 98 percent of them from Ashkenazi Jews.<br /><br /> This trip marks the first time Gift of Life has helped an Israeli.<br /><br /> International standards set by the World Marrow Donors Association ensure the donor and the recipient must remain anonymous. They can communicate by letter, without identifying themselves, but can't meet in person until a year after the transplant.<br /><br /> In 1991, Feinberg was a year out of college and an aspiring lawyer when he was diagnosed with leukemia.<br /><br /> The Friends of Jay Feinberg—a group comprised of Feinberg, his family, friends and hundreds of volunteers—tested tens of thousands of people internationally in search of a matching bone marrow donor.<br /><br /> In 1995, as Feinberg's condition worsened and he neared death, a volunteer in Milwaukee tested as his closest match. Feinberg received the donation and survived, and his organization became known as Gift of Life.<br /><br /> "My experience made me understand more about the value of life, and of the individual," he says.<br /><br /> He plans to mark the seven-year anniversary of his transplant celebrating with his donor, who has become a close friend.</p> <p> </p>

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