WARM WORDS Yosef Busner's volunteers are praying for his speedy recovery

I n his youth Yosef Busner 51 earned a black belt in karate trained people in self-defense and was an amateur boxer.

Life changed dramatically for Yosef Ben Tzion ben Shulamit in 2004 when he was diagnosed with a kidney problem. By 2006 he needed dialysis. A kidney transplant in the Philippines in 2007 for which Yosef personally invested thousands of dollars failed after three years. Today after relocating to Netanya to be closer to more convenient all-night treatments Yosef undergoes dialysis three times a week at Ichilov Hospital and is in desperate need of a new kidney.

Yet despite his illness Yosef manages to devote much of his spare time to the chesed organization he founded in 1999 B’Ahavat Yisrael. Love of the people and land of Israel is the driving force behind B’Ahavat Yisrael which Yosef founded to honor his first wife Simcha who before her death in 1998 was passionately involved in chesed projects.

B’Ahavat Yisrael delivers food and care packages to Shomron residents soldiers in volatile areas and Jews in bomb shelters. But the organization has also launched some more unusual initiatives — for example a safe hitchhiking project. For ten years members of B’Ahavat Yisrael drove the group’s van past various popular hitchhiking stops in the Shomron. Sporting a distinctive sticker that identified them as a Jewish chesed organization the van picked up hundreds of Jews saving them from potential kidnapping or worse.

B’Ahavat Yisrael has also initiated an innovative Jewish manual labor project in the Galilee. The project runs in conjunction with Yosef’s business Buy a Piece of Israel which sells land in the Galilee to Jews and encourages them to work those plots. Yosef manages a number of these sites for their Jewish owners where many have planted olive orchards harvested by Jewish workers and volunteers.

Tzila Dror from Oranit was one of the volunteers. “It’s hard work” she relates. “But you feel a real sense of satisfaction at the end of the day. I believe it’s important to have Jews working the land of Israel. This is my personal donation to Eretz Yisrael.”

Yosef has put his heart into B’Ahavat Yisrael. But today he is finding it hard to continue. “I’ve had to cancel a lot of projects. I can’t rely on myself to do what’s needed. I have one good day and then two bad days — and my bad days are really bad.”

Understandably for such a previously active person Yosef finds his sickness frustrating. “I can’t take my kids out on vacation I can’t go to simchahs. I just want to lie down. It’s hard.” Despite his uncertain health Yosef plans to do more chesed —if he regains his health G-d willing. “I would re-implement the safe hitchhiking project and stock a warehouse in readiness to supply people in bomb shelters should the situation arise G-d forbid. But I can’t plan ahead. I need funds and to get funds I have to travel to fundraise. I just can’t do it now.”

“I can’t take my kids out on vacation I can’t go to simchahs. I just want to lie down. It’s hard.” —Yosef Busner