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February 14, 2003/Adar 12 5763, Vol. 55, No. 25
Ilan Ramon memorialized at home
MATTHEW GUTMAN
Jewish Telegraphic Agency
TEL AVIV - In a short but moving ceremony, Israel's leaders gathered this week at Lod Air Force base near here to pay their last respects to Israel's first astronaut, Ilan Ramon, a man who has come to symbolize Israel at its best.
Security was tight Feb. 10 as the Shin Bet security services guarded the safety of the upper echelons of the Israeli political and military establishments, past and present, who arrived to hear Ramon eulogized.
The memorial for a man whose death colored almost every newscast early last week was broadcast live on all three of Israel's networks, and on most of its radio stations. In his speech, Prime Minister Ariel Sharon put Israel's fascination with Ramon's life and death succinctly: "His image, projected from above, was the reflection of Israel at its best - Israel as we would have liked to see it - the Israel we love."
Ramon was killed along with the six other members of the Columbia crew Feb. 1 when the shuttle shattered as it reentered the atmosphere.
President Moshe Katsav added that had Ramon not fulfilled his duty so perfectly in bombing the Iraqi nuclear reactor in 1981 - long before he reached the status of national icon - Israel and indeed the world might have been a far worse place.
"He knew how to unify the nation," continued Katsav, noting in a quavering voice Ramon's reciting of the Shema as the shuttle passed over Jerusalem, his decision to take along a miniature Torah scroll saved during the Holocaust and his proud bearing of the Israeli Air Force badge.
Throughout the ceremony the American-Israeli bond was oft-reiterated. "The Star of David, the 'blue and white' of our flag, were interwoven with the American Stars and Stripes, and the common fate of the team poignantly strengthened the staunch partnership between our nations," Sharon said.
Among the recipients of that sentiment were 15 NASA representatives who had escorted Ramon's body back to Israel.
Sharon, like the others who eulogized Ramon, including Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz and Air Force Commander Maj. Gen. Dan Halutz, insisted that Israel's participation in space was far from over.
Ramon's wife, Rona, sat stoically in the front row beside her children, each draped in a NASA bomber jacket. Ramon's four children looked haggard and stunned. A wide-eyed Noa, 5, stared out from her mother's arms at the dignitaries around her.
The family broke down when a chorus of young children began singing a mournful version of "Watch Over the World Child."
Ramon is to be buried Feb. 11 near the grave site of Israeli commander Moshe Dayan in the northern moshav of Nahalal.
The ceremony at Lod lasted barely 45 minutes. An honor guard of eight Air Force colonels bore Ramon's casket to a waiting truck that flew the body to Ramat David Air Force Base near Nahalal.
The final speakers during the ceremony were Assaf and Rona Ramon. Patched on the right shoulder of 14-year-old Assaf's NASA bomber jacket was the Israeli flag, on the left the insignia of the doomed STS 107.
They read aloud a letter written to them by Ramon's crewmate and friend Dave Brown on the second-to-last day of the flight.
"The most moving moment of the flight came when Ilan read a letter he brought from a Holocaust survivor who talks about his 7-year-old daughter who did not survive," Assaf read in English as Rona Ramon translated into Hebrew.
The letter continued: "How could such a beautiful planet survive? It is such a beautiful thing. It makes me want to enjoy every bit of the earth for how great it is,'' read the impassive mother and son, as if they did not really believe what they were saying.
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