In a rare moment of hope in troubled times, a Jewish man killed during an eruption of Middle East violence has given new life to an Arab woman.
Yigal Yehoshua died after being pelted with rocks amid clashes between Arabs and Jews in Israel’s mixed city of Lod.
The ethnic violence was triggered by protests and clashes in Jerusalem that also ignited an 11-day Gaza War.
Randa Aweis, a 58-year-old mother of six, received one of Yehoshua’s kidneys after the 56-year-old man succumbed to his injuries a week after being attacked.
Aweis had been waiting for a kidney transplant for 10 years. Yehoshua was registered as an organ donor; the Jewish man and the Arab woman were medically a match.
“I could not believe it,” Aweis said in an interview at the Hadassah Medical Center in Jerusalem. “I’m telling you, I couldn’t believe it.”
“They saved me,” she said. “People say he was a good man, that he didn’t do any harm, so why was he murdered? That’s forbidden. There must be peace between Jews and Arabs, real peace.”
Aweis never met Yehoshua, but she spoke to his widow on a tearful video call. She hopes to visit his family in person once she has recovered from the transplant.
“I will tell Yigal’s family thank you. They should not feel any more suffering. Yigal is going to heaven where it is better than here,” she said.
And she has a message for the Jews and Arabs of the region: “We should live together. We should have peace. We should be happy.”
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu condemned the attacks as “unacceptable,” saying in a statement: “Nothing justifies the lynching of Jews by Arabs and nothing justifies the lynching of Arabs by Jews.”
Yehoshua’s brother Efi, spoke at his funeral, saying his brother “believed in coexistence.”
“You said to me it would not happen. You believed if you put your head out everything will be fine: ‘They know Yigal.’ And the worst thing happened,” he said.
Police have arrested several suspects in connection with the violence.
Sources