A group of 40 yeshiva students has agreed to sign organ donor cards, thanks to the initiative of one of their peers. Yonatan Hasin, who studies at a hesder yeshiva in Raanana that combines military service with religious education, signed the Adi donor card shortly after turning 18. The gesture was not lost on the Health Ministry's National Transplant Center, which said it was moved by Hasin's efforts. The center recently launched a campaign to increase the number of Adi card bearers in the religious sector. In recent years, leading Israeli rabbis, including chief rabbis, have called on the public to sign the card, but some rabbis still discourage becoming an organ donor.
After getting the card, which "testifies to the willingness of the holder to donate his/her organs after death, for saving the lives of patients waiting for transplant," he began using it as a bookmark, and then realized that others could do the same. He told Israel Hayom that he began lobbying his peers to sign their own cards, persuading them that doing so would be of value to their studies and to society as a whole. He even set up dedicated computers to help them sign up electronically. They were ultimately swayed.
