Blood donations up 'thanks to sex segregation'

The Lev Malka organization, which runs dozens of blood drives every year, was surprised to receive a merit certificate from Israel's Blood Bank for collecting as many as 21,726 blood units recently.

Organization officials believe that the reason for the increase in blood donation was the separation between ultra-Orthodox men and women arriving to donate blood.

"Without the segregation, the public would not have arrived time and again to donate these blood units, each of which can save four different people," an organization official explained.

Lev Malka was founded in 1992 by Aharon L. Aberman, who is well known in Jerusalem for his manifold activities on behalf of the sick and their families. The organization's existence represents the realization of the hopes and desires of a terminally ill patient named Malka Farkash, who had asked Aberman to do something in her memory.

The organization serves as an operational arm of Israel's Blood Bank and maintains a database of some 200,000 potential donors.