New York – Generous Donors Crash Servers At Crowdfunding Site In Efforts To Save Chasidic Woman’s Life

New York – A charity campaign established to pay for a lifesaving living transplant for a Monsey woman has crashed the servers of a crowdfunding campaign, as generous donors from all over the world have stepped up to pay for the emergency surgery.

Newlywed Tzurty Reisman and her husband Motty had traveled to Israel to celebrate Lag B’Omer in Meron when Tzurty Reisman fell ill just one day before Lag B’Omer, vomiting severely and showing signs of jaundice. Motty Reisman rushed his wife of six months to the hospital where she suffered a complete liver shutdown, making an immediate transplant the only hope for her survival.

Members of the Jewish community got to work, hoping to make the necessary medical, financial and travel arrangements for the lifesaving surgery. Flying Reisman back to New York was out of the question because of the length of the trip and when a top Paris transplant center agreed to put Reisman first on their transplant list, she and her husband were flown to France to await a compatible liver.

Chaim Berkovic, a cousin of the Reisman’s, set up a crowdfunding campaign on the Unidy.org platform to raise the vast sums of money that would be needed to save Reisman’s life. He set a goal of $500,000 to cover the initial medical costs, including the transplant surgery and within less than 24 hours, the Give Tzurty Life campaign has raised more than $400,000. Over 5,000 donations have come in from all across the world, in amounts ranging from $1 to $10,000.

“We have close to 50 volunteers processing credit card information,” Berkovic told VIN News. “We have donations coming in from Australia, Quebec, all across the United Kingdown, Houston and many other places and it is amazing to see how klal yisroel has gotten together to help a young lady in her time of need.”

According to Berkovic, Unidy has never seen this volume for any single campaign, with an extra server being added to accommodate the unprecedented traffic to the site.

“They told me that in the history of their system they have never had so many users at once, with things happening so fast,” said Berkovic.

As of this writing, Reisman is currently in surgery and doctors have said that so far things are progressing smoothly.

“The third liver that they found was a good match and a good healthy liver,” said Reisman. “It is a delicate operation but doctors say things are going in the right direction.”

While initially doctors had refused to perform the operation until they knew that the Reismans could cover the cost of the operation, seeing the the immediate results of the crowdfunding campaign had them agreeing to go ahead with the procedure.

Berkovic said that there is no way to know at this time if medical insurance will cover any of the Reisman’s overseas medical costs and that the couple’s medical expenses will go far beyond the current $500,000 goal once the surgery has been completed.

“Right now we need to continue donating and to pray for Tzurtel bas Esther Chana,” said Berkovic.

To donate to the campaign go to https://www.unidy.org/helptzurty