After surviving kidney failure, Yaakov Horonchik is determined to push the miracle forward

Photos: Ezra Trabelsi

“I’m really sorry to be the bearer of bad news,” the nephrologist told Reb Yaakov Horonchik, who’d just undergone a second kidney transplant after his first donor kidney ceased functioning, “but your body has rejected the new kidney. That means we’re back to square one — and I’m afraid we’re out of options.”

When Reb Yaakov Horonchik learned that his second kidney transplant failed, he’d certainly have been forgiven for falling into a state of depression and hopelessness. But neither of those words were in his lexicon. He’d spent the previous three decades of his life connecting to positivity and blessing, even as his doctors predicted the worst. It just meant he’d have to reframe whatever options he had left, something he’s been doing since age nine, when no one thought he’d see his own bar mitzvah.

Perhaps his own critical life challenges are one reason he makes everyone around him feel at ease. He’s warm, funny, and even if you’re meeting for the first time, he makes you feel like you’ve known him for years. This isn’t just about being likable: It opens the door to discussing sensitive topics that, in another context, would be difficult to address.

An acute kidney dysfunction halted Reb Yaakov’s growth at the age of nine, and severely affected his height and ability to walk without dragging a leg. But despite several years in a wheelchair and suffering through the coldness that the medical system exhibited toward children half a century ago, he’s chosen, instead of harboring resentment, to dedicate his life to improving the lives of others, so that they won’t have to go through all that he endured.

Reb Yaakov Horonchik, a Gerrer chassid, was born 50 years ago in Tel Aviv. While he chooses not to divulge much about his private life, he asserts that his early childhood was pretty typical: loving parents, a good relationship with his siblings, education in the local cheder. Quite normal — that is, until he turned nine.

“All of a sudden I couldn’t stand up straight — I was hunched over and started walking crooked, and my parents went from one doctor to another to try to figure out what was happening,” Reb Yaakov recounts, as we escape the sweltering Bnei Brak heat into the comfortably air-conditioned office of Ma’aminim BaDerech, an advocacy organization he founded to support families with a loved one suffering from kidney disease.

Initially the doctors assumed there was some muscle or tissue damage to his leg or back, but after a multitude of negative tests, one physician speculated that it might be related to his kidneys, and sent him off to a renal specialist. It soon became clear that nine-year-old Yaakov was suffering from acute kidney failure, and he was immediately put on a dialysis protocol.