Teens get top artists in fundraising concert for child

Tel Aviv's Hangar 11 concert is to raise treatment funds for 4-year-old Yael Mitliansky, who has brain cancer.

By MEIRA BIENSTOCK
OritShachaffHayehudim311 (photo credit: .)
OritShachaffHayehudim311
(photo credit: .)
Twelfth-graders from across Israel have gathered together to organize a fund-raising concert at Hangar 11 in Tel Aviv to cover medical treatment for four-year-old Yael Mitliansky, who was diagnosed with a type of brain cancer called glioma. And they’ve managed to get some of Israel’s top artists to play.
“We were in school when a few people from our grade came into the classroom and asked the students to donate money for Yael,” said Lee Joe Barak, one of the teenagers taking part in the fund-raising effort. “When we heard the amount needed – a million shekels – we thought it would be impossible to raise that kind of money going from class to class.”
Barak and her friends decided to hold a concert to raise enough money for Mitliansky to undergo a special course of treatment in Germany.
Barak and her friends called Hangar 11, where the management agreed to host the concert. They then took the initiative to call agents, potential contributors, artists and sponsors until the arrangements for the show were eventually finalized.
The concert – which features artists Avraham Tal, Berry Sakharof, Daniel Salomon, Hayehudim, The Cartel, Yirmi Kaplan, Dr. Caspar and Rami Fortis – is scheduled to take place on June 12 at Hangar 11 in the Tel Aviv Port. Tickets cost NIS 80 and the gates will open at 9 p.m. All proceeds will go toward the Mitliansky fund.
Over 3,000 people have confirmed their attendance through a Facebook group started for the event, while the invitation alone has reached over 27,000 people. However, Barak reports that only a few hundred tickets have actually been sold. The organizers’ goal is to sell at least 2,000.
Sigal Eiferman, Mitliansky’s 18-year-old half-sister, said enlisting help at this time of year is especially hard because students are busy preparing for final exams. Nonetheless, the teenagers are working long hours to contact artists and prospective contributors.
Yael Mitliansky was diagnosed with a malignant tumor in an area of the brain that controls breathing and heartbeat, and which is so necessary for vital functions that surgery carries a high risk of mortality. And while there is no cure for the brain tumor, Eiferman says a doctor in Germany has researched glioma and performed experimental treatments on patients – though the success rate remains low.
Mitliansky’s health has already begun to decline.
“She used to be very energetic,” says Barak. “Now she’s gained a lot ofweight, it’s difficult for her to breathe, she’s moody. She doesn’tknow what she has; they just tell her she’s going to get better.”
Mitliansky’s insurance will not cover the bill for the treatment – which comes to over $200,000 – because it is experimental.
“This is the only hope for my sister. The whole family is trying theirbest to raise the money, and we hope money will not be the thing tokeep us from curing her,” said Eiferman.
To make a donation, contact Lee Joe Barak at 054-533-3161.