The rabbi and cantor at Chabad Lubavitch of Upper Montgomery County have something in common beyond their place of work: they’ve both donated a kidney to a stranger.
They both completed the process through Renewal, an Orthodox Jewish nonprofit organization that matches donors to kidney transplant recipients from all walks of life. They both had their surgical procedures at the same hospital and both benefited recipients in New York.
“It’s an opportunity to help someone in the most meaningful manner,” Rabbi Sholom Raichik, who donated a kidney in May, said.
“How many synagogues could say that [their] rabbi and cantor are [kidney] donors?” asked Chazzan Yaisef Telsner, who lives in Brooklyn and travels to the Gaithersburg Chabad for major Jewish holidays.
His philanthropic journey began in 2018 in Crown Heights. Telsner took a swab at a community event where Renewal was seeking a match for a local member of the Chabad community.
One year later, Raichik swabbed at a Renewal donor recruitment booth at an international Chabad conference in Crown Heights.
Although neither of them turned out to be a match, Telsner received a call in 2019 that he was a match for a Sephardic woman in her mid-60s living in Brooklyn. One of the first people he called after he found out was Raichik.
“There’s something called the mashpia, like a mentor,” Telsner said. “You call them when you don’t want to make the decision yourself; everyone should have a mentor to speak it over with, to guide you.”
Telsner would have called his parents first, but they live in Australia and had been asleep at the time. So he asked the rabbi, “What am I getting into?” Two days later, the cantor came down to Gaithersburg for Yom Kippur and the two talked about the process in depth.
Raichik’s biggest piece of advice was for Telsner to consult a doctor who was uninvolved with Renewal, to ask about the potential long-term risks and outcomes.
“He was part of my journey from the very beginning,” Telsner said.
The ensuing doctor’s visits were thorough, Telsner recalled: “We made a joke about it; if you want a very good physical and full-body examination, become a donor.”
He joined a Facebook group of kidney donors and asked if he was “crazy” for not feeling any nerves or anxiety the night before his procedure.
“I danced into the operating room,” he said.
On the operating table, the surgeons inserted a tube down Telsner’s throat: “I make good money on the High Holidays; make sure you don’t mess up my vocal cords,” the cantor quipped.
His January 2020 kidney donation was a success. He received a thank you letter from the recipient, which he keeps in his High Holidays prayer book, and got to meet her years later.
“Without [my kidney donation], I would have never, ever met her,” Telsner said. “We have nothing in common besides we’re both Jewish, and now we’re sharing organs.”
In November 2024, Raichik received a similar call as his colleague had five years earlier: he was a match for a woman in her 70s.
He shared the news with Telsner last Chanukah in Crown Heights, and the cantor answered his questions about every step of the process.
Raichik did “as much research as [he] could” to comfortably go forward with the procedure and found that health risks among kidney donors compared to the general population were “basically negligible.” The process was made easier by his support system.
“When I called [Raichik] first, he told me certain things that he wanted me to do,” Telsner recalled. “I said, ‘Now you need to do the same thing yourself; you need to speak to the doctor.’”
Raichik got approval from his wife, family and primary care doctor to donate a kidney, which he did in May.
On the day of Raichik’s procedure, a group of the rabbi’s congregants recited Psalms for Raichik and the recipient of his kidney. The surgery went well; Raichik went into the hospital on a Tuesday morning and was discharged by Thursday afternoon.
“It’s a Jewish thing,” he said. “Saving a life is No. 1 and being able to do something like that is very meaningful, literally giving life to someone I think was previously on dialysis and is now not.”
Raichik has not yet met the recipient of his kidney, but the two plan to meet one day.
“I just want to know, who is this person?” Raichik said. “I helped a person in their life. What is their life like? Their family, their children, their grandchildren, and see the extent of how far my donation has gone.”
Raichik and Telsner are among a growing number of Orthodox Jews who have donated a kidney to someone they do not know. In America, Orthodox Jews make up about 18% of altruistic kidney donors despite comprising only 0.2% of the United States population, according to Mosaic Magazine.
This phenomenon is largely thanks to the work of nonprofit organizations such as Renewal, which actively seeks out donors and speaks to Orthodox Jewish communities, demystifying the process, Raichik and Telsner said.
Telsner serves on the American Society of Transplantation‘s transplant community advisory committee.
“I try as much as I can to encourage people not even to swab, [but] learn about a [living kidney donation] being something for you,” he said. “Most people you talk to, once they learn about it, they want to do it.”
Living kidney donations have only entered the mainstream within the past couple of decades. Raichik said the fact that he knew people who had successfully donated a kidney and led “normal lives” afterward made him aware of the option. He also has a brother-in-law who received a kidney transplant.
“There’s a point of Jewish community,” Raichik said, citing shared values. “When you see somebody doing something in your community … and you hear about these things, it gives you encouragement to go ahead with something like this.”
Telsner said he is glad that he’s been receiving “more and more of those calls” from friends and family members who plan to donate a kidney.
“It’s very gratifying,” he said.
