In 1995, Brandeis University student Alisa Flatow was in Israel studying at the seminary known as Nishmat when on a day in April, a terrorist rammed his van into the Egged bus she was on. The Islamic Jihad member detonated an explosive device, killing Flatow, 20. The blast also killed several Israeli soldiers, and many people were wounded.
From Flatow’s tragic death would come life, as several of her organs were donated to others.
Rebecca Wolf, a classmate of Flatow’s at The Frisch School in New Jersey, was inspired to write the new novel Alive and Beating after then-Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin said Flatow’s heart was beating in Israel.
“She was always smiling and was friends with every single person,” Wolf told The Jewish Press, speaking of Flatow. “She had a nice smile, big dimples, and I don’t know anyone that didn’t like her. It was terrible to hear what happened to her. This was not a time that it was considered very dangerous.”
Flatow would be 50 if she were alive today. In 1995, it was uncommon for Orthodox Jews to desire to donate organs. “I think the decision to donate organs made a tremendous impact on the Jewish community to consider donating in the future,” Wolf said. “What she did was groundbreaking. She was 20 years old, and her organs weren’t hit other than a piece of shrapnel that severed her brainstem. She was a catalyst for change, and it resulted in the saving of many lives.”
Wolf said it took about five years to write her book because she wanted it to have an authentic voice, which it certainly does.
Among the characters in the novel is Leah, a young Orthodox woman and daughter of a Holocaust survivor, who is afraid her dialysis could ruin a shidduch.
Then there is Yael Glassman, who has gone through one successful transplant for lungs but needs another and worries who will take care of her daughter if the worst happens. “Don’t tell me I survived the Holocaust to watch my child die,” her father Shmulik tells her in a dramatic moment.
Another character, Hoda Ibrahim, is a religious Muslim hairdresser who needs a kidney, and her son jokes that he would not want to take an organ from a Jew, but she has no problem with it.
Wolf’s writing is at its strongest and its best when describing two teenage boys who love basketball and are both in dire need of a heart transplant – Yosef, who is Israeli, and Youssef, who is Palestinian. While they first clash in their hospital room, they develop a camaraderie, and one poses the question if it is bad to wish that someone will die, as that would be lifesaving to them if the heart could be transplanted. Toward the end of the book, we learn that one of them will be getting a heart.
Wolf interviewed numerous people in need of organ transplants who are waiting on lists and said it is hard to put their predicament into words. “There’s no planning, there’s no dreaming, it’s just every day trying to survive the day,” she said.
In real life, organs have been transplanted from Jews to Muslims and vice versa. “It’s important to recognize the humanity in each other but that’s easier said that done,” Wolf said.
A journalist and Teaneck resident, Wolf said her synagogue, Rinat Yisrael, has been involved in 19 organ transplants. She said that while donating organs is a personal thing that each person, if they choose to, should discuss with their rabbi, she hopes her book will inspire people to look into organizations like Renewal, which specializes in kidney transplants from living donors.
Alive and Beating is a powerful book that deals with life and death while managing to have some moments of comic relief. It shows characters who battle the unknown future while maintaining belief in G-d, as their family members try their best to help them but often feel helpless. This is a book that will make you appreciate your health, your family, and the ability to do the mundane.
It is a surprise that this is Wolf’s debut novel as it is clear she has a finely developed skill. I would have liked the book to be a bit longer, but as it is, it is a page-turner.
