Yad Sarah returns stash of cash, jewelry found in donated hospital bed

“This is the way of our organization – a good deed brings about another good deed. Congratulations!”

By JUDY SIEGEL-ITZKOVICH
Updated: SEPTEMBER 9, 2015 05:26
Treasure recovered from donated hospital bed (photo credit: YAD SARAH, COURTESY)
Treasure recovered from donated hospital bed
(photo credit: YAD SARAH, COURTESY)
The last thing that Yad Sarah storehouse manager Yisrael Arend thought he would find on receiving a donated hospital bed was thousands of dollars in cash, gold jewelry and watches stashed in the mattress.
The voluntary organization received a donation of a hospital bed that a family had used for treating a patient at home. When Arend unzipped the zipper of the mattress cover on the bed, he had a big surprise: Inside the bag was a bonanza of cash and expensive goods.
Without thinking twice, he identified the donors of the bed, who were amazed not only to get the valuables back, but also by the volunteer’s willingness to return them.
Yad Sarah founder and president Uri Lupoliansky praised Arend, saying, “This is the way of our organization – a good deed brings about another good deed. Congratulations!” Within hours, the donors – Avi Markovich and his wife – arrived at the organization’s Jerusalem headquarters.
“People told us that the bed was worth a lot of money and that we should sell it,” Markovich recalled.
“We told them that our father [the patient] donated all his life and that we decided to donate the bed to Yad Sarah. I called them, and in a few days, they arrived in a truck. In the end, our contribution returned to us.”
He said his father had been a known goldsmith in Tel Aviv.
“He had a gold bracelet that he had made for my wife, and we wanted to see whether it was suitable for our daughter. After he died, we looked for it, but didn’t find it,” he said. “We are so excited that this jewelry and other things, which have financial and emotional value, have come back to us. Yad Sarah volunteers are righteous people.
If we had not donated the hospital bed to the organization, we would never have gotten this treasure returned.”