Julie Rosenblatt, an Oakhurst woman fighting leukemia, was scheduled to receive a stem cell transplant July 23 at the New Jersey Cancer Institute in New Brunswick and is now in need of more blood donations.

Rosenblatt, a 43-year-old mother of two, has credited her survival to the medical care she has received as well as the prayers and blood donations provided by members of the Jewish community — many of whom did not know her.

A blood drive will be held on Thursday, Aug. 9, from 3 to 8 p.m. at Rosenblatt's synagogue, Temple Beth El, 301 Monmouth Rd., in Oakhurst. Blood types A positive or O positive are needed. Potential donors must weigh more than 110 pounds and be in general good health.

Others can give blood directly through the blood center serving the institute at Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital by appointment. Call 732-235-8100, ext. 224; ask to speak to Maureen.

"Julie will have to be in the hospital for a minimum of 20 days," said her sister and stem cell donor Lynda Allen of Wayside. "They have to kill every cell in her body in order to do the transplant."

Rabbi Mendy Carlebach of Chabad House of North and South Brunswick is distributing a letter along with his father, Rabbi Yosef Carlebach of Chabad House Jewish Student Center at Rutgers University, urging the community to come to the hospital to donate blood. The elder Carlebach is also religious leader at Congregation Sons of Israel in Ocean, where Allen is a congregant.

"This is a very integral part of the Talmud: 'He who saves a life is as if he had saved an entire world,'" said Mendy Carlebach. "Obviously on a moral basis anyone who can help should. From a religious basis, we're obligated to help any which way we can. Any blood not used will be used for someone else."

In a related story, one of Rosenblatt's physicians, Dr. Roger Strair of the Cancer Institute of New Jersey in New Brunswick, will be one of the riders in a bicycle ride intended to raiser funds for the institute's cancer research.

Strair will take part in the third annual Century for the Cure Ride, to be held Sept. 8 on a loop that begins in Warren and winds through the Great Swamp and the horse country of Far Hills and Bedminster toward Flemington.

Rider and volunteer registration, a training schedule, and donation information for the Century for the Cure Bike ride can be obtained on-line. Checks, made payable to Century for the Cure, can also be sent to P.O. Box 4129, Warren, NJ 07059.