But it experienced a first when a 14-month-old baby was brought from Afghanistan to Israel.

Like so many of the group’s young patients, Yahya was suffering from a congenital heart defect. Accompanied by his father, a poor florist, Yahya had been denied treatment in Pakistan and India by doctors who feared there was nothing that could be done to save the boy.

Desperate, Yahya’s parents contacted a relative who teaches English in the Afghani city of Jalalabad. She in turn contacted a US-Israeli citizen, Anna Mussman, who previously taught English in Afghanistan on behalf of the US State Department.

Mussman got in touch with Save a Child’s Heart, whose director, Simon Fisher, had been a high school student of hers in Haifa. With assistance from the Foreign, Defense and Interior Ministries, Fisher was able to bring the boy to Israel.

In the end, Yahya underwent successful open-heart surgery conducted by Dr. Lior Sasson at...

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