From Jerusalem - the memory of David Appelbaum

The angels we owe
By Bradley Burston (Ha-aretz)


What is faith, if not optimism without a shred of cause for optimism?What are angels, if not pure creatures of faith?They walk among us here. So much so, that it can seem as though there are more of them in the Holy Land than in other places. That, it turns out, is an illusion, caused by the fact that here, they simply have more work to do.This, then, is nothing more than a word of thanks. Thanks for those who cannot be thanked nearly enough, and aren't.Angels here come in a multitude of forms and uniforms. They are Israeli and Palestinian, Muslim and Jewish and Christian. They are nurses and physicians, paramedics and orderlies, surgeons and ambulance attendants, fire fighters, volunteers, physical therapists, occupational therapists, lab techs and orthopedists and surgeons and anesthetists and psychologists and psychiatrists and social workers.They don't just save lives here. They save life itself.When the slain and the maimed are forgotten, already in the public consciousness little more fodder for revenge, it is an earthly host of unsung, overwhelmingly outnumbered angels, who make life possible for individuals and families shattered forever by an unendable war.We, the peoples of the Holy Land, have made a science of killing. We have made an industry of maiming. We have made a culture, a religion, of the doctrine of self-defense. We use everything we can. We use rocks and rockets, slingshots and self-propelled cannon, suicide belts packed with bolts and large carpentry nails, assault rifles and sniper rifles and rocket propelled grenade launchers and artillery shells and tank shells and roadside charges.When weapons work, we may meet the victims for a fleeting moment on television screens and front pages, only to be immediately diverted by scenes of the escalation in bloodshed that is the obscene and inevitable legacy of the suffering of the victims.This, then, is a word of thanks to the forgotten, the never-known, the angels whose very lives are corrosive, endangering their spirits, often costing them their own health. This year will mark the fifth anniversary of the September 11 attacks. On September 9, another anniversary will be marked, more quietly, less widely, but no less profoundly.On that night in 2003, David Appelbaum, 51, took a rare break from work to invite his 20-year-old daughter Nava out for coffee. It was the eve of her wedding. They sat in a cafe on teeming Emek Refaim Street, Jerusalem's closest approximation of the Upper West Side of Manhattan. David Appelbaum's work was saving lives. A physician who had also been ordained an Orthodox rabbi, Appelbaum was head of the emergency medicine department of Shaarei Tzedek hospital in the city and a world authority on treating the casualties of terrorism.At times he had seemed to be everywhere at once, often reaching the still-burning and still potentially deadly scene of a terrorist attack before rescue crews did. "He would appear at the site of every attack, volunteer, get in the ambulances to evacuate the injured to the emergency room," said Dr. Kobi Assaf of Hadassah University Hospital, Ein Kerem.David Appelbaum touched thousands of people with kindness, courage, humanity and skill. Seven years before that night, the Knesset had given him an award for treating terror victims on King George Street in the heart of the city, while under fire. He had earned a night off. He had earned a lifetime of them. So the night before his daughter's wedding, they went out to Cafe Hillel. The Hamas suicide bomber came in only a little while later.Seven people were killed that night. On Emek Refaim, the Valley of Ghosts. David Appelbaum and his daughter Nava never made it to the hospital.This is nothing but a word of thanks.A word of gratitude for the people who most truly engage in self-defense.For the people who do the work of angels. The work of the Lord.For the people who defend us from ourselves.