Nava Applebaum
Encyclopedia
Nava Applebaum (also spelled Appelbaum) (c. 1983 – September 9, 2003) was a 20-year-old Israeli-American
woman who was murdered together with her father on the evening before her wedding by a Palestinian
suicide bomber
.
Journalist Yossi Klein Halevi
described the incident as an "epic tragedy", and wrote: "If a new book of the Bible were ever written about the modern return to Zion, it would have to include the story of the Applebaums."
, was a prominent emergency room doctor well known for work on methods for assisting suicide bombing victims. He was born in Detroit, Michigan, and moved to Chicago
, Illinois, as a teenager. After being ordained as a rabbi, he attended Northwestern University
and graduated with a Masters in Biology, before attending the University of Toledo Medical Center. He moved to Israel in 1982, and traveled back at times to practice in the United States.
David's daughter Nava was born in Cleveland, Ohio
, later moving to Israel, where she graduated from Horev Girls High School. Applebaum first met her fiancé, Chanan Sand, when she was 17 and he was 16, at an Ezra religious youth group, where they both served as youth group advisors. A year later they were engaged, but delayed their wedding for two years. As part of her two-year Sherut Leumi
service (alternative national service
), Applebaum worked with children with cancer. She planned on studying chemistry or genetics at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem
, and her goal was to find a cure for cancer.
Sand and Applebaum scheduled their wedding for September 10, 2003, in Ramat Rachel
, a kibbutz
south of Jerusalem.
(Jewish law) for all brides prior to their wedding. She then began helping her family with the wedding arrangements, when her father decided to take her out for a "father-daughter" talk before her wedding. They went to Café Hillel
on Emek Refaim
Street, in Jerusalem.
On the day of the bombing, September 9, security guards in the vicinity of Café Hillel were told to be on the lookout for a suicide bomber. At around 11:20 pm, a security guard stationed at a nearby pizza parlor noticed a man walking by with a bulky square-shaped box under his shirt. He yelled at the man to stop, but the man refused. The security guard did not want to shoot him in the back, for fear that it would detonate the bomb. A few seconds later, the suicide bomber detonated the bomb close to the entrance of Café Hillel. Nava and her father were entering the cafe at that time. Nava was killed together with her father. She was dead by the time she was reached by paramedics.
Applebaum's fiancé, Chanan Sand, collapsed in the emergency room of Shaare Zedek Medical Center upon hearing that his fiancée had not survived. She was buried the next day adjacent to her father in the Har HaMenuchot
cemetery, in the western part of Jerusalem.
Hundreds of friends and relatives traveling to Israel for the wedding arrived to find that they would be attending her funeral instead, on the day she was supposed to get married. Sand attended the funeral, and placed in her grave the wedding ring he had planned on giving her at the wedding.
A few days after the bombing, another engaged couple decided to hold their Sheva Brachot
celebrations at the site of the suicide attack. The choice of venue was intended "as a sign of 'continuity'". The celebration was video-conferenced to numerous Jewish communities around the world.
Numerous memorials and charity projects were undertaken in memory of Nava Applebaum. The top of Applebaum's unworn wedding gown was made into a covering
for the Torah ark at Rachel's Tomb
. It is inscribed: "Nava Applebaum, A Bride for Eternity." The skirt of the wedding gown was formed into a wedding canopy for other couples to stand beneath during their chuppah
ceremony.
Dr. Paige Applebaum Farkas, a Teaneck, New Jersey
, resident and second cousin to David Applebaum, and her brother, Dr. Eric Applebaum, also of Teaneck, raised money to build a special room for brides at the mikvah in the Har Homa
neighborhood of Jerusalem.
A memorial service honoring Nava and her father held in New Jersey one year after their deaths drew over a thousand people.
The Naava Applebaum Circle of Life Endowment was established by the Shaare Zedek Medical Center in Jerusalem, and it supports the Sherut Leumi
service, in which Nava Applebaum participated.
All Bat Mitzvah girls (12 year-old girls, who at that age become responsible for their actions according to Jewish law) of Moriah School in Englewood, New Jersey
receive a book of Psalms
inscribed in the memory of Nava Applebaum.
A dowry
fund was also established, the Naava Applebaum Kallah Fund, for brides that cannot afford the basic wedding necessities.
In 2006, Nava's brother Yitzchak was in medical school. At that time, her sister Shira was a paramedic
planning on attending medical school. When Shira got married she used Nava's wedding gown as part of the canopy.
In April 2008, Mark Kirk
, a Congressman from Illinois, wrote a letter to former President Jimmy Carter
urging him not to meet with Khaled Mashal
, due to his alleged complicity in Applebaum's death. Mashal was the leader of Hamas
, the organization that orchestrated the suicide bombing.
Applebaum's fiancé, Chanan Sand, was unable to date for several years after her death because of his grief, but became engaged in 2009. Members of the Applebaum family attended the engagement party.
In October 2011, Ibrahim Dar Musa, who was involved in the planning of the suicide attack, was released from prison as part of the Gilad Shalit prisoner exchange
.
Israeli American
Israeli Americans are Americans of Israeli descent. According to the 2000 census, there were 106,839 people of Israeli ancestry in the United States.- Demographics :...
woman who was murdered together with her father on the evening before her wedding by a Palestinian
Palestinian political violence
Palestinian political violence refers to acts of violence undertaken to further the Palestinian cause. These political objectives include self-determination in and sovereignty over Palestine, the liberation of Palestine and establishment of a Palestinian state, either in place of both Israel and...
suicide bomber
Suicide attack
A suicide attack is a type of attack in which the attacker expects or intends to die in the process.- Historical :...
.
Journalist Yossi Klein Halevi
Yossi Klein Halevi
Yossi Klein Halevi is an Israeli author and journalist.-Biography:Halevi was born and raised in New York in a Jewish family. He completed a BA in Jewish Studies in Brooklyn College in 1978, and completed his MA in Journalism at Northwestern University...
described the incident as an "epic tragedy", and wrote: "If a new book of the Bible were ever written about the modern return to Zion, it would have to include the story of the Applebaums."
Biography
Nava Applebaum was the eldest daughter of David and Debra Applebaum, the third of six children. Her father, David ApplebaumDavid Applebaum
David Applebaum was an American-born Israeli physician and rabbi. He was chief of the emergency room and trauma services of Jerusalem’s Shaare Zedek Medical Center. Applebaum was killed in a Palestinian suicide bombing at Cafe Hillel in Jerusalem on September 9, 2003.-Biography:David Applebaum...
, was a prominent emergency room doctor well known for work on methods for assisting suicide bombing victims. He was born in Detroit, Michigan, and moved to Chicago
Chicago
Chicago is the largest city in the US state of Illinois. With nearly 2.7 million residents, it is the most populous city in the Midwestern United States and the third most populous in the US, after New York City and Los Angeles...
, Illinois, as a teenager. After being ordained as a rabbi, he attended Northwestern University
Northwestern University
Northwestern University is a private research university in Evanston and Chicago, Illinois, USA. Northwestern has eleven undergraduate, graduate, and professional schools offering 124 undergraduate degrees and 145 graduate and professional degrees....
and graduated with a Masters in Biology, before attending the University of Toledo Medical Center. He moved to Israel in 1982, and traveled back at times to practice in the United States.
David's daughter Nava was born in Cleveland, Ohio
Cleveland, Ohio
Cleveland is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio and is the county seat of Cuyahoga County, the most populous county in the state. The city is located in northeastern Ohio on the southern shore of Lake Erie, approximately west of the Pennsylvania border...
, later moving to Israel, where she graduated from Horev Girls High School. Applebaum first met her fiancé, Chanan Sand, when she was 17 and he was 16, at an Ezra religious youth group, where they both served as youth group advisors. A year later they were engaged, but delayed their wedding for two years. As part of her two-year Sherut Leumi
Sherut Leumi
Sherut Leumi is an alternative voluntary national service in Israel for those that cannot or do not wish to serve in the Israel Defense Forces...
service (alternative national service
National service
National service is a common name for mandatory government service programmes . The term became common British usage during and for some years following the Second World War. Many young people spent one or more years in such programmes...
), Applebaum worked with children with cancer. She planned on studying chemistry or genetics at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem
Hebrew University of Jerusalem
The Hebrew University of Jerusalem ; ; abbreviated HUJI) is Israel's second-oldest university, after the Technion – Israel Institute of Technology. The Hebrew University has three campuses in Jerusalem and one in Rehovot. The world's largest Jewish studies library is located on its Edmond J...
, and her goal was to find a cure for cancer.
Sand and Applebaum scheduled their wedding for September 10, 2003, in Ramat Rachel
Ramat Rachel
Ramat Rachel is a kibbutz located south of Jerusalem in Israel, as an enclave within Jerusalem's municipal boundaries. Overlooking Bethlehem and Rachel's Tomb and situated within the Green Line, it falls under the jurisdiction of Mateh Yehuda Regional Council...
, a kibbutz
Kibbutz
A kibbutz is a collective community in Israel that was traditionally based on agriculture. Today, farming has been partly supplanted by other economic branches, including industrial plants and high-tech enterprises. Kibbutzim began as utopian communities, a combination of socialism and Zionism...
south of Jerusalem.
Bombing
A few hours before the bombing, on September 9, Applebaum attended the mikveh (ritual bath), as required by HalakhaHalakha
Halakha — also transliterated Halocho , or Halacha — is the collective body of Jewish law, including biblical law and later talmudic and rabbinic law, as well as customs and traditions.Judaism classically draws no distinction in its laws between religious and ostensibly non-religious life; Jewish...
(Jewish law) for all brides prior to their wedding. She then began helping her family with the wedding arrangements, when her father decided to take her out for a "father-daughter" talk before her wedding. They went to Café Hillel
Café Hillel
Café Hillel is a cafe, espresso bar, and sandwich bar chain in Israel.-History:The first branch opened on Hillel Street in Jerusalem in 1998, which became the source of its name. The chain now has 24 branches all over the country...
on Emek Refaim
Emek Refaim
Emek Refaim is the main street of the German Colony, a neighborhood in Jerusalem, Israel. It takes its name from the biblical Valley of Rephaim which began its descent from Jerusalem here.-Etymology:...
Street, in Jerusalem.
On the day of the bombing, September 9, security guards in the vicinity of Café Hillel were told to be on the lookout for a suicide bomber. At around 11:20 pm, a security guard stationed at a nearby pizza parlor noticed a man walking by with a bulky square-shaped box under his shirt. He yelled at the man to stop, but the man refused. The security guard did not want to shoot him in the back, for fear that it would detonate the bomb. A few seconds later, the suicide bomber detonated the bomb close to the entrance of Café Hillel. Nava and her father were entering the cafe at that time. Nava was killed together with her father. She was dead by the time she was reached by paramedics.
Applebaum's fiancé, Chanan Sand, collapsed in the emergency room of Shaare Zedek Medical Center upon hearing that his fiancée had not survived. She was buried the next day adjacent to her father in the Har HaMenuchot
Har HaMenuchot
Har HaMenuchot is the largest cemetery in Jerusalem, Israel. It is located at the western edge of the city adjacent to the neighborhood of Givat Shaul, with commanding views of Mevaseret Zion to the north, Motza to the west, and Har Nof to the south.-History:...
cemetery, in the western part of Jerusalem.
Hundreds of friends and relatives traveling to Israel for the wedding arrived to find that they would be attending her funeral instead, on the day she was supposed to get married. Sand attended the funeral, and placed in her grave the wedding ring he had planned on giving her at the wedding.
Post-death events
The poignant tragedy of a father and daughter murdered on the evening before the daughter's wedding moved Israelis, who continue to recall the tragedy years later.A few days after the bombing, another engaged couple decided to hold their Sheva Brachot
Sheva Brachot
Sheva Brachot literally "the seven blessings" also known as birkot Nesuim , "the wedding blessings" in Jewish religious law are blessings that are recited for a bride and her groom as part of nissuim...
celebrations at the site of the suicide attack. The choice of venue was intended "as a sign of 'continuity'". The celebration was video-conferenced to numerous Jewish communities around the world.
Numerous memorials and charity projects were undertaken in memory of Nava Applebaum. The top of Applebaum's unworn wedding gown was made into a covering
Parochet
Parochet is the curtain on the front of the Aron Kodesh in a synagogue that covers the Sifrei Torah...
for the Torah ark at Rachel's Tomb
Rachel's Tomb
Rachel's Tomb , also known as the Dome of Rachel, , is an ancient structure believed to be the burial place of the biblical matriarch Rachel. It is located on the outskirts of Bethlehem, a Palestinian city just south of Jerusalem, in the West Bank...
. It is inscribed: "Nava Applebaum, A Bride for Eternity." The skirt of the wedding gown was formed into a wedding canopy for other couples to stand beneath during their chuppah
Chuppah
A chuppah , also huppah, chupah, or chuppa, is a canopy under which a Jewish couple stand during their wedding ceremony. It consists of a cloth or sheet, sometimes a tallit, stretched or supported over four poles, or sometimes manually held up by attendants to the ceremony. A chuppah symbolizes the...
ceremony.
Dr. Paige Applebaum Farkas, a Teaneck, New Jersey
Teaneck, New Jersey
Teaneck is a township in Bergen County, New Jersey, and a suburb in the New York metropolitan area. As of the 2010 United States Census, the township population was 39,776, making it the second-most populous among the 70 municipalities in Bergen County....
, resident and second cousin to David Applebaum, and her brother, Dr. Eric Applebaum, also of Teaneck, raised money to build a special room for brides at the mikvah in the Har Homa
Har Homa
Har Homa is a neighborhood in southern East Jerusalem, near Beit Sahour. Built on land annexed to the Jerusalem municipality by Israel after the 1967 Six-Day War, it is considered by much of the world an illegal Israeli settlement, although Israel disputes this.The neighborhood was officially...
neighborhood of Jerusalem.
A memorial service honoring Nava and her father held in New Jersey one year after their deaths drew over a thousand people.
The Naava Applebaum Circle of Life Endowment was established by the Shaare Zedek Medical Center in Jerusalem, and it supports the Sherut Leumi
Sherut Leumi
Sherut Leumi is an alternative voluntary national service in Israel for those that cannot or do not wish to serve in the Israel Defense Forces...
service, in which Nava Applebaum participated.
All Bat Mitzvah girls (12 year-old girls, who at that age become responsible for their actions according to Jewish law) of Moriah School in Englewood, New Jersey
Englewood, New Jersey
Englewood is a city located in Bergen County, New Jersey. As of the 2010 United States Census, the city had a total population of 27,147.Englewood was incorporated as a city by an Act of the New Jersey Legislature on March 17, 1899, from portions of Ridgefield Township and the remaining portions of...
receive a book of Psalms
Psalms
The Book of Psalms , commonly referred to simply as Psalms, is a book of the Hebrew Bible and the Christian Bible...
inscribed in the memory of Nava Applebaum.
A dowry
Dowry
A dowry is the money, goods, or estate that a woman brings forth to the marriage. It contrasts with bride price, which is paid to the bride's parents, and dower, which is property settled on the bride herself by the groom at the time of marriage. The same culture may simultaneously practice both...
fund was also established, the Naava Applebaum Kallah Fund, for brides that cannot afford the basic wedding necessities.
In 2006, Nava's brother Yitzchak was in medical school. At that time, her sister Shira was a paramedic
Paramedic
A paramedic is a healthcare professional that works in emergency medical situations. Paramedics provide advanced levels of care for medical emergencies and trauma. The majority of paramedics are based in the field in ambulances, emergency response vehicles, or in specialist mobile units such as...
planning on attending medical school. When Shira got married she used Nava's wedding gown as part of the canopy.
In April 2008, Mark Kirk
Mark Kirk
Mark Steven Kirk is the junior United States Senator from Illinois and a member of the Republican Party. Previously, Kirk was a member of the United States House of Representatives, representing Illinois's 10th congressional district....
, a Congressman from Illinois, wrote a letter to former President Jimmy Carter
Jimmy Carter
James Earl "Jimmy" Carter, Jr. is an American politician who served as the 39th President of the United States and was the recipient of the 2002 Nobel Peace Prize, the only U.S. President to have received the Prize after leaving office...
urging him not to meet with Khaled Mashal
Khaled Mashal
Khaled Mashal, also known as Khaled Mashaal, Khaled Meshaal, and Khalid Mish'al, has been the main leader of Hamas since the assassination of Abdel Aziz al-Rantissi in 2004. In addition, Mashal heads the Syrian branch of the political bureau of Hamas.Mashal was born in Silwad, a village north of...
, due to his alleged complicity in Applebaum's death. Mashal was the leader of Hamas
Hamas
Hamas is the Palestinian Sunni Islamic or Islamist political party that governs the Gaza Strip. Hamas also has a military wing, the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades...
, the organization that orchestrated the suicide bombing.
Applebaum's fiancé, Chanan Sand, was unable to date for several years after her death because of his grief, but became engaged in 2009. Members of the Applebaum family attended the engagement party.
In October 2011, Ibrahim Dar Musa, who was involved in the planning of the suicide attack, was released from prison as part of the Gilad Shalit prisoner exchange
Gilad Shalit prisoner exchange
The Gilad Shalit prisoner exchange followed an agreement between Israel and Hamas to release Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit in exchange for 1,027 prisoners – mainly Palestinians and Arab-Israelis, though among the prisoners released there was also a Ukrainian prisoner, a Jordanian prisoner, and a...
.