Leo Dee meets Arab Israeli who received wife Lucy’s kidney: ‘I can’t thank him enough’
Rabbi Dee received a plaque from 38-year-old Abu Radia which said: “If you save one life it’s as if you’ve saved the world.”
Rabbi Leo Dee, the husband of Lucy and father of Maia and Rina who were killed in a terror attack in the West Bank, met for the first time with an Arab Israeli man who received an organ transplant from Lucy that saved his life.
38-year-old Abu Radia from central Israel received a kidney from Lucy on April 7 after she was critically injured in a terror attack. Lucy died not long after, but the organs transplant saved Raida’s life. He had been given a month to live prior to the life-saving transplant.
Rabbi Dee met Radia on Wednesday, receiving a plaque from him which said: “If you save one life it’s as if you’ve saved the world.”
Rabbi Dee gave Raida a framed blessing for “good health and a good life” in Hebrew and Arabic, according to Daily Mirror which spoke to Raida.
“I’d have died without this kidney. I cannot thank Rabbi Dee enough. He’s saved my life,” Raida told Daily Mirror.
Rabbi Dee said: “This is what Lucy would have wanted. Her kidney is a sign of peace and reconciliation. The fact that you are alive is a miracle for us. I thank you from the bottom of my heart. Part of my late wife is inside you and it gives our family great comfort to know she continues to do good.”
“And you being an Arab and a Muslim is especially wonderful, as she did so much for reconciliation. It’s a blessing to see you looking so well in your own house. I’ve sadly lost two daughters and my wife but the fact you’re alive because of them – you continuing to live – is a real miracle,” Rabbi Dee told Raida.
Rabbi Dee had also apparently been “warned” not to to come to see Abu Radia by some people. “They said it was impossible to visit him while there was fighting between Israelis and Palestinians in Gaza. I was delighted and relieved that he invited me,” he said, referring to the recent five-day-long conflict between Israel and Islamic Jihad in Gaza.
Lucy Dee’s organs helped save four other people who were in dire need of transplants. In a highly emotional meeting at Beilinson Hospital in Petah Tikwa last week, Rabbi Dee, and his three surviving children, Keren, Tali and Benjamin, met three of the patients who were saved by Lucy Dee’s organs.
One of the patients was Lital Valenci, 51, who suffered from severe heart failure for five years. She waited eight agonising months for a new heart, with doctors warning she had months to live without a transplant. But Lucy Dee’s heart eventually saved her.
Both Keren and Tali got to listen to Valenci’s heart beat through a stethoscope.
WATCH: “Can you hear her heart beat?” Lital asked Keren Dee, the daughter of Lucy Dee who was killed in a terror attack last month. “Yes,” Keren replied and started crying. Lital received her mother's heart just three weeks ago. pic.twitter.com/5TwSSKS1ut
— Jewish News (@JewishNewsUK) May 2, 2023
“Listening to my mother’s heartbeat made me feel like I am with her. It was moving meeting Lital and all the recipients, we have lost so much but are comforted that so many families were saved from similar pain,” said Keren.
“Nobody can understand what it is like losing a mother and two sisters at once and to hear my mother’s heartbeat was comforting,” added Tali.
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