Award-winning TV report prompts upsurge in Israeli live organ donations

Lee Abramovich, a reporter for Channel 2 news who on Sunday was presented with the B’nai B’rith World Center Award for Journalism, said her prize-winning TV report on organ donations by living American Jews to Israelis had prompted an upsurge in such donations by Israelis.

Abramovich won the prize — which recognizes excellence in Diaspora reportage — for a report last year on an Orthodox New York Jew who gave a kidney to save the life of an Israeli mother. In her acceptance speech, she said there had since been 21 cases of living Israelis who gave organs to save Israeli lives.

Among those participating in the awards ceremony was Ambassador Stuart Eizenstat, a former US undersecretary of state and deputy secretary of the Treasury in the Clinton Administration, who delivered the keynote address on the future of the Jewish people and its relationship with the United States.

The jury also awarded Foreign Correspondents Citations to AP correspondent Diaa Hadid (General Media) and to Jana Beris, editor of the Jewish Uruguayan publication Seminario Hebreo (Jewish Media).