Recently a three way kidney exchange was performed in Israel. This would have been unremarkable under most circumstances: Israel has an active kidney exchange system. But it caused a strong reaction in the Israeli press, because one of the donors, a well-known rightwing activist who wanted to donate a kidney so that his brother could receive one, announced that he wanted his kidney to go only to a Jew.
Here's the Ynet story (you can click to render it in English):
kidney in a transplant marathon: "The condition was - only for a Jew
Here's the Times of Israel (already in English):
Right-wing journalist causes stir by announcing his kidney would go only to a Jew
There were many more, but you get the idea. Some of the stories point out that the Israeli National Transplantation Center uses an algorithm* that doesn't see the religion of the recipient, so it's not clear that this was a declaration with consequences. It was meant to provoke, and it did.
But it's a complicated issue. In the U.S. (and in Israel), donations can be made to a specific individual, but not to a class of individuals. With living donation, it means that the donor can choose a specific person to donate to, and it isn't an issue how they choose: no one has to donate an organ to anyone, and every donation saves a life (and maybe more than one, particularly since living donation reduces competition for scarce deceased-donor kidneys). So if this donor had been able to donate to his brother, no one would have thought twice that he was glad to be donating to a fellow Jew. What made his announcement provocative was that his kidney wasn't going to his brother: his brother was getting a kidney from an anonymous other donor. [Update clarification/correction: this donation was apparently an undirected (except for the 'only' condition) altruistic donation, not part of an exchange involving the donor's brother.]
Among the people I corresponded with about this is Martha Gershun, a kidney donor who thinks and writes clearly, and has given me permission to quote some of what she said.
"I’m wondering if we find the presentation of the story troubling: “Right-wing journalist and Temple Mount activist causes stir by announcing his kidney would go only to a Jew.” We would react badly to a story that said: “Right-wing Trump supporter says he will only give his kidney to a white man.”
"What if instead the stories were: “Observant Jewish father of 8 wants to donate to a fellow Jew” and “Rural man from West Virginia seeks to help another in his community”? Would we find those stories more acceptable?"
Part of the feeling that this is a bit complicated has to do with the fact that we don't (and maybe shouldn't) look gift horses in the mouth, i.e. we don't and maybe shouldn't delve deeply into the motivation of altruistic acts that do a lot of good. We should applaud good deeds even if they aren't performed by saints. (I blogged yesterday, about paying it forward, an umbrella term for doing good deeds in a spirit of gratitude for having ourselves benefited from past good deeds performed by others. We generally don't find it necessary to condition our approval on precisely who receives the forward-paid gifts.)
So, while I'm not sorry to see that this statement by a kidney donor is a much discussed provocation, I'm inclined to think that a good deed remains a mitzvah even if not performed by a tzadik, as we might have said in our New York English when I was growing up.
I'll give the last word to a Haaretz op-ed, also in English:
Is It Kosher to Donate Kidneys Only to Other Jews? A well-known religious journalist in Israel declared the " -only" donation of his kidney. His act is imperfect, but not immoral by Robby Berman
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*On the algorithm used in Israel and elsewhere, see e.g.
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