A lone IDF soldier – one that has no immediate family in Israel – gave a Massachusetts doctor a new lease on life with a bone marrow donation.

Maya Ben Yitzhak, who hails from Chicago, decided to register with Ezer Mizion’s bone marrow registry, which required a simple scraping of the inside of her cheek with a swab.

Ben Yitzhak was surprised when, just a year later, the organization informed her that her bone marrow was a match for a 64-year-old Jewish woman in the United States.