David Applebaum

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David Applebaum (1952-2003) was the 50 year-old chief of the emergency room and trauma services of Jerusalem’s Shaare Zedek Medical Center when he was murdered by a Palestinian suicide bomber in the Café Hillel, Jerusalem on September 9, 2003. Applebaum was born in Detroit, Michigan. He attended high school at the Hebrew Theological College in Skokie, Ill., received rabbinical ordination from Rabbi Aaron Soloveitchik at the Brisk Yeshiva in Chicago, and was a graduate of Roosevelt University in Chicago, with a master's degree in biological sciences from Northwestern University. Appelbaum earned his medical degree at the Medical College of Ohio in Toledo, Ohio in 1978.[1] [2]

He was killed with his daughter Nava Applebaum, 20, as they walked to a cafe several blocks from home for a late night snack and a father-daughter talk on the eve of her wedding.[3] [4]

While all murders are a tragedy for individuals connected with the victim, some have a wider resonance. Applebaum's murder resonated widely, probably, as the editors of the Lancet worte, because of the tragic irony that this victim of a suicide bomber was himself, an "emergency room doctor who treated victims of dozens of suicide bombings in Israel."[5]

In 1984, the doctor reached a man shot in a clothing shop, and began operating on him while the shooting continued.[6] In 1986 the Israeli Knesset gave Applebaum the Quality of Life Award for treating terror victims on King George Street in Jerusalem while bullets continued to fly around him.[7] Applebaum pioneered the idea of immediate care clinics in Israel, to divert non-emergency cases from hospital emergency rooms while delivering faster care to patients who would have had long waits for emergency room staff.[8] The British Medical Journal, noted that Appelbaum trained both muslim and Jewish physicians and nurses for his system of urgent care centers so that there would be staffing on the holy days of both religions.[9] He was credited by The Lancet with "transforming" the delivery of emergency care in Israel.[10] Jonathan Halevy, Director General of Shaare Zedek, called Applebaum, "a master of emergency medicine." He said that Applebaum had spent the last year upgrading the center’s emergency room procedures, and previously had set up a chain of small emergency care centers throughout Jerusalem.[11]

At the time of his murder, Dr. Appelbaum had just returned from New York where he addressed a symposium on terrorism, marking the 2nd anniversary of the September 11 attacks on the United States. He ended his remarks with: "From one moment to the next, we never know what will happen in the ER (emergency room), but it's in Jerusalem that real reality occurs."[12]

Appelbaum’s younger daughter, Shira, has earned her paramedic degree from Ben-Gurion University's Health Sciences Faculty, and now works in emergency medicine.[13]


[edit] References

  1. ^ A Healer of Terror Victims Becomes One, By GREG MYRE , New York Times, September 11, 2003 http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9D00E6DE133BF932A2575AC0A9659C8B63
  2. ^ "The Lancet," Volume 362, Issue 9389, 27 September 2003, Page 1083
  3. ^ A Healer of Terror Victims Becomes One, By GREG MYRE , New York Times, September 11, 2003 http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9D00E6DE133BF932A2575AC0A9659C8B63
  4. ^ Dr David Appelbaum
  5. ^ "The Lancet," Volume 362, Issue 9389, 27 September 2003, Page 1083
  6. ^ A Healer of Terror Victims Becomes One, By GREG MYRE , New York Times, September 11, 2003 http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9D00E6DE133BF932A2575AC0A9659C8B63
  7. ^ "The Lancet," Volume 362, Issue 9389, 27 September 2003, Page 1083
  8. ^ An urgent revolution | Jerusalem Post
  9. ^ British Medical Journal 2003 September 20; 327(7416): 684.
  10. ^ "The Lancet," Volume 362, Issue 9389, 27 September 2003, Page 1083
  11. ^ Cafe Hillel
  12. ^ Cafe Hillel
  13. ^ Dr. David Applebaum's daughter starts medical career, By JUDY SIEGEL-ITZKOVICH, Jerusalem Post, Nov 23, 2006 http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1162378469249&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull