David Applebaum was born in 1952 and raised in Detroit. He received his smicha from the Brisk Yeshiva in Chicago, and his medical training in Cleveland. He immigrated to Israel in 1981 with his wife Debra and his son Natan, the oldest of their six children. He served as a medical director of the Magen David Adom in Jerusalem and was one of the founders, in 1988, of TEREM, a private emergency care clinic, which soon expanded throughout the areas around the capital. In 2002 he became head of the emergency room and trauma services at Jerusalem's Shaarei Zedek Hospital. The staff of the Emergency Room knew something was wrong when he didn't show up at the hospital, as usual, minutes after the news of the attack. He was killed on September 9, 2003 in the suicide bombing of Café Hillel, together with his daughter Naava. David and Naava were survived by Debra, wife and mother, and five other children/siblings.
