New York Orthodox Jews make up HALF of all US plasma donors volunteering blood to help treat COVID-19 patients as the community turns 'tragedy into a superpower'

New York Orthodox Jews make up half of all US plasma donors volunteering blood to help treat COVID-19 patients, according to a medical expert. 

Dr. Michael Joyner of the Mayo Clinic, who is running a study on the effects of plasma to treat the virus, said more than 5,000 patients across the US have been given plasma treatment so far and, when it comes to donors, 'by far the largest group is our Orthodox friends in New York City.'

'I would be shocked if they were less than half the total,' Joyner told the  New York Times.    

Thousands of Americans who have recovered from coronavirus are donating their blood to plasma clinics in the hope that it can be used to treat other people struck down by the virus.

And Orthodox Jews are making up a significant proportion of the volunteers as the famously tight-knit community pulls together amid the health crisis and many see their newfound health as a 'blessing', according to medics and community members.

This comes as the Jewish community has been especially devastated by the pandemic in virus epicenter New York, home to the largest Jewish community outside Israel. 

+7

Plasma is donated by recovered COVID-19 patients. New York Orthodox Jews make up half of all US plasma donors volunteering blood to help treat COVID-19 patients, as the community is turning the 'tragedy into a superpower'

More than 12,000 New York Orthodox Jews have signed up to various community programs donating blood plasma since April 4 and organizers expect this to reach 30,000 soon, the Times reported. 

Orthodox Jews from New York are 'punching way above their weight' when it comes to donating, Dr. Shmuel Shoham, who is leading a study at Johns Hopkins University on using plasma to treat people exposed to the virus, told the Times.  

'The community has taken a tragedy and turned it into a superpower.'    

Several grassroots initiatives have sprung up in the local community, with the word spreading via synagogues and community newsletters.  

'What struck me initially was that we all kind of had the same idea,' Avrohom Weinstock, who organized a scheme through his company Agudath Israel, told the Times. 

'It resonated with everybody in the community and that's why they really pushed it forward and donated.'

+7

An Orthodox Jew in New York wears a face mask. More than 12,000 New York Orthodox Jews have signed up to various community programs donating blood plasma since April 4 and organizers expect this to reach 30,000 soon

+7

Several grassroots initiatives have sprung up in the local community, with the word spreading via synagogues and community newsletters

Weinstock said rabbis have given followers permission to drive to blood banks on the Sabbath to donate if this is the only available appointment time, so that as many lives as possible can be saved.

'From a moral and religious perspective, we have every obligation to do whatever we can,' said Weinstock. 

'If we'll find out later it saved 50 lives or 100 lives or 20 lives, whatever the case is, if it's 20 lives, it's worth every effort, every minute of it.' 

So many community members have volunteered, New York blood banks can no longer keep up with demand, the Times reported, leading to many traveling further afield to Pennsylvania and Delaware to donate.

The drive to donate comes in large part down to the traditionally close-knit community and the importance the religion places on human life, according to public health experts and community leaders.  'There were probably never so many Hasidim in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, in the history of the world, and here they're riding in literally to save lives,' Mordy Serle, an Orthodox Jewish lawyer who traveled from Brooklyn to a bank in Pennsylvania last month to donate blood and who has helped organize donations. 

'We look at it as a gift that we recovered, because many people in our community did not recover. And for us a gift is not something to sit back and enjoy and just talk about, it is a gift we have to use,' Serle said.   

'I think that it comes from our education and the way we're raised, the idea of kindness, or chesed, as being one of the foundations of what the world is built on and how it is sustained,' said Weinstock.   

+7

Mordy Serle, an Orthodox Jewish lawyer who has helped organize blood plasma donations among the New York community

With no known coronavirus cure or vaccine on the table, medics across the US are trialling the use of blood plasma containing virus antibodies from recovered patients.

It's a treatment that is still in the experimental stage, with several clinical trials under way to determine its effectiveness.     

Joyner said he is 'cautiously optimistic' such a treatment works because it is a method that has long been used to treat infectious diseases.

The push to find effective treatment comes as the Jewish community has been hard-hit by the outbreak in New York.  

Across the state, a total of 337,055 people have been infected and 21,835 people killed by the virus.  

Exact figures for the toll on the Jewish community are not available but New York City Health Department data shows a strong correlation between the areas most affected and the city's Hasidic neighborhoods. 

Borough Park, Williamsburg and Crown Heights in Brooklyn are all home to large Hasidic communities and they have all recorded high infection rates. 

+7

Orthodox Jewish men move a wooden casket from a hearse at a funeral home in the Borough Park neighborhood in Brooklyn. The Jewish community has been hard-hit by the outbreak in New York

+7

Tensions have been mounting between the community and the city's authorities, after New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio was accused of singling out Orthodox Jews over social distancing practices when large crowds gathered for a funeral last month

More than 700 deaths were recorded in the city alone by mid-April and at-home deaths in Borough Park and Williamsburg in March and early April were up more than 10 times compared to the same time last year, according to the Times of Israel. 

However, tensions have been mounting between the community and the city's authorities, after New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio was accused of singling out Orthodox Jews over social distancing practices.    

Photos showed hundreds of Orthodox Jewish community members crowded in Williamsburg for a funeral in April, and de Blasio personally traveled across the city to break it up.

The mayor slammed the mourners on Twitter calling their actions 'absolutely unacceptable' but faced a backlash for targeting the community while others have also been pictured flouting the state's stay-at-home order.