Temple Plans Marrow Drive for L.A. Man With Leukemia

Mitchell Shore is hoping Ventura will be his city of hope.

The 47-year-old Los Angeles financial advisor and close friend to several members of a local synagogue has leukemia and needs a bone marrow transplant.

“He was just released from his seventh round of chemotherapy. A bone marrow transplant is his best chance for survival because the chemo hasn’t been successful,” Ventura resident Julie Saltoun, Shore’s friend of 15 years, said Wednesday.

Saltoun, a local attorney, has organized a blood and bone marrow drive at Temple Beth Torah in Ventura from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. Aug. 9. In exchange for donating blood, a free bone marrow test will be done with the names added to the national list. Testing is done on blood sent to a lab.

“There are 3 million people in the national registry of donors but no matches. This is what has motivated me to hold a drive and get more people to register,” Saltoun said. “Even if we can’t help him, which I am hoping we can, there are a lot more people who need help.”

Shore was diagnosed in November after feeling sluggish for several months--something he originally chalked up to aging, stress and not working out enough at a gym, Saltoun said.

Once an avid hiker and golfer, Shore on Wednesday was having a blood transfusion at City of Hope National Medical Center in Duarte, where he has been participating in an experimental program, Saltoun said.

In a letter to his friends and family in December, Shore promised to beat the disease.

“I’m applying constructive pressure on myself in the manner of Muhammad Ali or Joe Namath by guaranteeing victory in advance,” his letter said.

Anyone between 18 and 60 can participate in the drive and the most likely matches will have Jewish, Russian and Polish ancestry or anyone with European ancestry, Saltoun said.

“What we are doing is not unusual among synagogues because bone marrow recipients are so specific you need to find someone with a perfect match, and so often that is related to the ethnic background,” Rabbi Lisa Hochberg-Miller of Temple Beth Torah said Wednesday.

Shore’s brother, Jay Shore of Portland, Ore., is also making a plea to donors. “On behalf of my brother, our mother and father, Mitch’s nephew, niece and many friends and relatives, I am asking individuals to consider becoming a potential bone marrow donor,” Jay Shore wrote in a notice on the drive.