Six times a year, every year, Chizuk Amuno Congregation comes together for a blood drive.
Blood drives are not an uncommon occurrence at a synagogue, but this one is special: Altogether, it’s the largest Jewish blood drive in the country, saving more than 1,800 lives annually.
Warren and Fran Gould are Chizuk Amuno congregants who help run the efforts together.
For Warren Gould, the Howard W. Brill Memorial Blood Drive has a special, personal meaning. Twenty years ago, he was diagnosed with chronic lymphocytic leukemia. He beat cancer, and now he gets to help others who are battling life-altering diseases.
“I can’t give blood, but this seems so poetic to me to be able to help collect blood and get others to give blood,” he said.
The most recent edition of the drive was held on Jan. 15, and it was the first one in which Chizuk Amuno partnered with American Friends of Magen David Adom, which supports Israel’s national emergency services system.
“At the beginning of 2020, I announced a decade-long goal of saving an additional 180 lives a year every year through the decade, which would get us to saving 20,000 lives total within the decade,” Gould said. “In the process of doing that, we became the largest Jewish blood drive in the country. We’ve been the largest for the last four or five years.”
The blood drive is named after Howard Brill, a former donor who passed away from brain cancer a few years ago. Gould said that they also call it the “Howard Brill Save Three Lives in 11 Minutes” blood drive, because it takes 11 minutes for the average person to donate, and three lives can be saved from that short period.
“That is, to me, just incredible. It’s a moral imperative,” Gould said.
The drive on Jan. 15 was one of the synagogue’s most successful yet. Sixty-eight people gave blood, with 22 giving an extra amount. The donated blood goes to trauma patients, newborns and people with sickle cell anemia and other conditions. While the blood goes to people who need it locally, if Israel is to suffer an unforeseen emergency, Blood Centers of America, which also participated in collecting blood, and Magen David Adom send the blood to Israel.
“It tied our third biggest blood drive ever,” Gould said. “That was after some tough years. So that was great, and our community helped save up to 330 lives that day.”
Rabbi Joshua Gruenberg of Chizuk Amuno said that the collaboration between the shul and American Friends of Magen David Adom exemplifies a core Jewish value.
“This partnership between us at Chizuk Amuno and AFMDA embodies the Jewish imperative of pikuach nefesh — the sacred obligation to save life — by responding to the urgent blood shortage here in America while affirming our community’s enduring bond and responsibility to the State of Israel,” he said.
American Friends of Magen David Adom’s director of major gifts and Baltimore resident Ira Gewanter said that the event speaks to the purpose of Magen David Adom, which isn’t just to help Jews or soldiers in the Israel Defense Forces.
“This blood drive speaks to our core values because all the blood donated will save lives for anyone in need here in Maryland — mirroring Magen David Adom’s parallel mission of saving civilian lives without any prejudice based on race, religion, gender or political affiliation,” he said.
When Gould first got involved in the blood drive 13 years ago, it was just as essential, though it was smaller in scale. But over those years, word continued to spread, and the event kept getting bigger.
“We just started growing it. It started evolving. By the sixth or seventh year, I told the community that our goal that year was to help save 1,000 lives, and everybody became very invested in that,” Gould said.
