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Pre-Nuptial Murders Recalled
Implications of Palestinian terrorist attack 15 years ago still resonate.
I
Robert Sklar
Contributing Editor
8
t was to be the kind of precious
moment a father craves with a
daughter about to be married: a
respite together, however fleeting,
the night before the big day.
Dr. David Appelbaum, a U.S.-
bred Israeli innovator in emer-
gency medicine, and his daughter,
Nava, relaxed at Cafe Hillel, in the
German Colony neighborhood of
Jerusalem, 15 years ago as family
members back home nearby final-
ized wedding plans.
The unthinkable happened at
11:20 p.m. Sept. 9,
2003 — a Tuesday
night.
David, 51, and
Nava, 20, died
along with five
others, and at
least 50 more were
wounded, in a
Nava Appelbaum
suicidal terrorist
attack. A Hamas
operative blew himself up while
trying to overpower a security
guard and enter the coffee shop.
In a stunning twist of fate, Dr.
Appelbaum had just returned
from lecturing at a New York
University Downtown Hospital-
sponsored 9-11 commemorative
forum on the dynamic of hospitals
receiving mass casualties.
The visit to Cafe Hillel was in
anticipation of the marriage of
the eldest daughter of Debra and
David Appelbaum to Hanan Sand,
19. The would-be newlyweds had
met three years before in a reli-
gious youth group.
David was described as atten-
tive and energetic — “unusually
caring;” Nava was remembered as
sweet and studious — “an angel in
life,” according to the Israeli news-
paper Haaretz. They never stood
under the chuppah because of a
Palestinian culture of hate toward
Israel and Jews ingrained so deeply
in society it will take generations
to change in any sort of substan-
tive way. Father and daughter were
buried alongside one another at
Givat Shaul, a hilltop cemetery at
Jerusalem’s west edge.
Today, as more and more
Palestinian Arabs seek treatment
in Israeli hospitals because of the
September 20 • 2018
jn
It’s important to highlight how
Israelis cherish life and
compassionately treat
Palestinians seeking help.
superior quality of the medical
care, it’s important to highlight
how Israelis cherish life and com-
passionately treat Palestinians
seeking help while Palestinian ter-
rorist leaders teach impressionable
loyalists there’s ultimate glory in
seeking “martyrdom for Allah” by
murdering Jews.
A SPECIAL MAN
A devout Torah scholar, Dr.
Appelbaum, the father of six,
dedicated his life to medicine and
Judaism — his
personal avenue
to sanctifying
God’s name.
In Jerusalem,
Appelbaum
headed emergency
services at Shaare
Zedek Medical
David Appelbaum
Center and taught
Jewish medical
ethics at a girls’ seminary. He was
affiliated with Magen David Adom,
Israel’s national ambulance, blood
services and disaster relief service,
and often was among the first
responders to terrorist attacks. He
attended to all victims, no matter
their background, with humility.
Nava emulated her father’s
devotion to others. As part of her
national service after high school,
she volunteered with kids battling
cancer.
Dr. Appelbaum had Chicago
and Cleveland roots, but also a
Jewish Detroit link. He studied
under Rabbi Aaron Soloveitchik
at Hebrew Theological College
in Skokie, Ill., along with then-
roommate and future rabbi Moshe
Dombey, who attended elemen-
tary school at our Yeshiva Beth
Yehudah. It was David who intro-
duced Moshe to his future wife,
Miriam Simon.
Debra and David Appelbaum
made aliyah in 1981. David later
helped revolutionize emergency
care in Israel. He also founded and
directed the Terem network of
emergency clinics in Israel.
The good doctor’s legacy has
saved countless lives — including
those of many Palestinians. More
Palestinians than their leaders
care to admit seek healthcare in
Israel. The Jewish state offers many
sophisticated tests and treatments
not available in Palestinian hospi-
tals. The Palestinian Authority pays
much of the associated cost. Israel-
administered programs enable
eligible Palestinian kids, notably
those with heart conditions, to
receive free medical care.
SEARCHING FOR PEACE
The young terrorist who attacked
Cafe Hillel, Ramez Abu Salim, first
tried to enter a nearby pizza parlor,
but was rebuffed. He studied at
Birzeit University near Ramallah
in the West Bank. You can only
imagine how he was indoctrinated
under Hamas. The U.S.-, Israel-
and European Union-recognized
Sunni Islamist terrorist organi-
zation rules the Gaza Strip and
commands a sympathizer base
inside the supposedly politically
moderate West Bank presided over
by Sunni Fatah leader Mahmoud
Abbas.
In his thought-provoking new
book, Letters to My Palestinian
Neighbor, Jerusalem-based author
and journalist Yossi Klein Halevi,
who supports a two-state solution
to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict,
recounts how Palestinian terror-
ists launched their second intifada
(uprising) against Israel in 2000.
Halevi specifically cites the Cafe
Hillel incident, which occurred
near his office.
He writes that at the house of
mourning, “the grieving wife and
mother assumed the role of com-
forter, reassuring all who came to
her with faith and determination.
It was then I knew that nothing
would ever uproot the Jewish peo-
ple from this land again.”
Halevi is a senior fellow at the
Shalom Hartman Institute in
Jerusalem. With Imam Abdullah
Antepli of Duke University in
Durham, N.C., he co-directs the
Institute’s Muslim Leadership
Initiative.
In his analysis of the difficult
choices confronting Israelis and
Palestinians in the war-ravaged
Middle East, Halevi lasers in on
the second intifada. It marked
the time, he writes, when Israelis
who felt Israel was “the occupier”
gradually “lost faith in the peaceful
intentions of the Palestinian lead-
ership.”
“And not just because of the ter-
rorism,” Halevi writes. “We lost
faith because the worst wave of
terrorism in our history came after
Israel had made what we consid-
ered a credible offer — two offers,
actually — to end the occupation.”
But Palestinian leader Yasser
Arafat rejected the offer … with
no counter. Later, U.S. President
Bill Clinton blamed Arafat for the
collapse of the peace process —
“a shattering moment for many
Israelis who believed in the pos-
sibility of resolving the conflict,”
Halevi writes.
Dr. David Appelbaum embraced
equal parts spirituality and human-
ity. He understood the possibilities
that could spring from Jews living
peacefully amid Arabs, who, in
one coexistence example, come
to Israeli hospitals not just as
patients, but also as physicians,
nurses and lab technicians.
The good doctor, pious and holy
with tzadik-like qualities, chose
to return to the ancestral Jewish
homeland. He unwittingly gave
his life in pursuit of helping secure
common ground for lasting peace
and prosperity for Israel and its
Palestinian neighbors. •