By Jeff Lipton
About a year after Cohen donated her blood stem cells to Alon Caspi, a 6-year-old diagnosed with leukemia, donor and recipient were brought together at the New York Hilton in Manhattan on June 12 for the annual Gift of Life Bone Marrow Foundation-Partners for Life Donor Reception Gala. The identities of the two were not revealed until the dinner because the Gift of Life must wait a year to make sure the bone marrow transplant has been a success.
Cohen, a 25-year-old mother of two young children, was entered in a registry of bone marrow donors after she was tested during a bone marrow drive held at the Hebrew Academy of the Five Towns and Rockaway High School on Feb. 24, 2002. The drive was organized in an effort to help find a match for 33-year-old Barry Mishkin, whose relatives live in Cedarhurst. But a match could not be found for Mishkin, who was diagnosed with acute lymphocytic leukemia, and he died about nine months ago, when the illness degenerated into acute myoplastic leukemia.
However, the drive helped to find matches for five people waiting for life-saving donors, including Caspi. The identities of the others have not yet been revealed. Two of the donors are from HAFTR, and the recipients are a 53-year-old man and a 12-year-old girl.
The 2002 donor drive drew a record 2,938 people from all over Long Island. One of them was Cohen, whose husband, Dr. Jonathan Cohen, is a teacher at HAFTR Middle School.
When the Cohen family was notified that her DNA matched a patient awaiting a transplant, she couldn't believe it, said Rabbi Cohen. These things only happen to extraordinary people. This has completely changed our lives. She was very excited to do it Ñ it was almost like we were the recipients. We were just in the right spot at the right time. It was just a tremendous feeling.
Cohen donated her blood stem cells at Columbia Presbyterian Medical Center, and the life-saving tissue was rushed to JFK Airport by police escort. Caspi, who is now 8, received his life-saving transplant at the Schneider Children's Medical Center In Israel.
Cohen spent two days in the hospital, seven hours a day, during the procedure. The blood was taken out of her and not once did she complain, said her husband. It was a very tough experience, but my wife is the perfect candidate for it. She is very low-key. She did it with a smile and with the anticipation that one day she would meet the boy to whom she gave her DNA.
That meeting came on June 12. The Cohens presented the boy with a teddy bear, which he carried throughout the night. He is the sweetest boy in the world. He's very cute, said Rabbi Cohen.
Tzivia Cohen has said that her donation was akin to giving new life, and is not unlike becoming a mother again.
Indeed, Alon's mother, Larissa, said, We consider Alon's donor like a second mother for him Ñ she gave him a new life.
Jonathan Nierenberg of Cedarhurst, Mishkin's brother-in-law, said he was disappointed that last year's donor drive didn't find a match for Barry, but he is happy that five other people received life-saving matches. The donor drive was spearheaded by the Nierenberg family and Mishkin's relatives, the Weichholz family, in West Hempstead.
My brother-in-law passed away nine months ago, but what we weren't able to do for him, we were able to do for others, Nierenberg said.
The donors were told that they had to be between ages 18 and 60 and that the best chance for a match would have been from Eastern European Jewish, or Ashkenazi, ancestry, although all were encouraged to take the test, which consisted of a simple cotton swab swipe of the inside of the cheek.
The donors are strict Sabbath-observant Jews and the recipients are not, which shows that this crosses the lines of any religious beliefs, Nierenberg said. He said that through testing at HAFTR, as well as in Riverdale, Manhattan, where Mishkin lived, and Montreal and New Jersey, 34,000 names were entered in the bone marrow data bank, helping to increase an international list of possible donors for 50 worldwide organizations such as Gift of Life.
The Nierenberg, Mishkin and Weichholz families would like to thank the entire HAFTR, Five Towns and Greater Long Island communities in their efforts to save lives, Nierenberg said. He also thanked Dr. Mordy Weitchner of Hewlett for overseeing the medical portion of the HAFTR tests.
