One Last Father-Daughter Chat

By David Van Biema Sunday, Sept. 14, 2003
    • Sometimes the most important conversations between a father and child are the ones that have to be slipped in edgewise. David Applebaum's daughter Nava, 20, was to be married last Wednesday in Jerusalem. Applebaum, who was ordained as a rabbi before he opted for a medical career, had already gone to some lengths to ensure that Nava was properly launched in her new status, compiling a booklet for her of rabbinical sayings, family aphorisms and his own thoughts about relationships and marriage. But he was determined to fit in one more chat with his oldest girl before she stepped beneath the bridal huppah. He had said she was the only one of his six children to whom he had never had to raise his voice — the challenge now was getting a hearing in the midst of the prenuptial frenzy.

    Achieving that ambition was further complicated by the fact that Applebaum, as a leading specialist in emergency response to terrorist attacks, was a man in great demand. Since immigrating to Israel from Cleveland, Ohio, two decades ago, he had established Jerusalem's first mobile intensive-care units and offered up a steady stream of efficiencies and innovations against the ever more frequent waves of carnage produced by suicide bombers. As the director of emergency medicine at Jerusalem's Shaare-Zedek hospital, Applebaum, 50, was known for his obsession with reducing patient waiting time, treating Palestinian and Israeli victims alike, having once performed emergency surgery in a Jerusalem street and being one of the first to arrive at the hospital after explosions. He was a comforting figure to ambulance drivers and paramedics, most of whom had trained with him. "He was everybody's parent, everybody's uncle," says longtime friend Rabbi Moshe Soloveichik of Chicago. It was this combination of eminence and accessibility that prompted New York University's Downtown Hospital to invite Applebaum to speak near ground zero the Monday before the Sept. 11 anniversary — and two days before Nava's wedding.


    LATEST COVER STORY
    Mind & Body Happiness
    Jan. 17, 2004
     

    SPECIAL REPORTS
     Coolest Video Games 2004
     Coolest Inventions
     Wireless Society
     Cool Tech 2004

    PHOTOS AND GRAPHICS
     At The Epicenter
     Paths to Pleasure
     Quotes of the Week
     This Week's Gadget
     Cartoons of the Week

    MORE STORIES
    Advisor: Rove Warrior
    The Bushes: Family Dynasty
    Klein: Benneton Ad Presidency

    CNN.com: Latest News

    Nava urged him to go. "It's important that you represent Israel, but be sure to get back on time," she said. So Applebaum, who knew about getting to places fast, did some fancy scheduling: he would fly to New York City, give his talk — not a eulogy, but a chillingly practical step-by-step primer on emergency care after major bombings — jump on a plane back the same day with a few New York — based wedding guests and return in time to help with the final preparations.

    And he pulled it off. By Tuesday evening the Applebaum home in Jerusalem's Kiryat Shmuel neighborhood was in happy turmoil. Several hundred guests had arrived in town from as far away as Australia, and David's wife Debra was making last-minute adjustments to seating plans for the wedding dinner. Nava, a cheerful young woman who had done her national service attending children with cancer and who wanted to study chemistry to help battle the disease, was even more radiant than usual, having returned home after a cleansing ceremony in a ritual bath. As the night wore on and people got hungry, father and daughter saw their opportunity. They dashed out to pick up salads, sandwiches and coffee for everyone, and to finally have their heart-to-heart talk. "David wanted a few moments with his daughter before handing her over to his son-in-law," says Shlomo Cherrick, another old friend of Applebaum's. The trendy Cafe Hillel was close by, and its food was good. Inside, the pair lined up at the takeout counter, which is where they were when the suicide bomber ran in.

    They were buried in adjacent graves on a hill outside Jerusalem.