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Israel remembers its fallen astronaut
By Patrick Healy, Globe Staff, 2/11/2003
From the moment they entered the cavernous Air Force hangar here for a memorial service, Ramon's family transfixed the hundreds in the audience and many of the television viewers at home: Rona, the widow, her chin high as she carried young daughter Noa to their seats beside Prime Minister Ariel Sharon; the two younger boys, Tal and Yiftah, in pressed white shirts and slacks; and the young man of the family, Assaf, in Ramon's jacket, with the poise and good looks of both his parents. As they sat, the 5-year-old Noa scrambled onto her mother's lap, leaving an empty chair beside them for most of the ceremony. Returning to Israel for the first time since Ramon perished in the Feb. 1 Columbia shuttle disaster, the family joined friends, relatives, politicians, and military officers to honor Ramon, whose role in the legendary 1981 bombing of an Iraqi nuclear reactor was enough to earn him national hero status even if he were not the first Israeli in space.
By all accounts, the 48-year-old Ramon loved his time training at NASA and working not only with his six fellow Columbia astronauts, but also with scores of Israeli scientists and students of all ages back here at home. Those bonds set the physical and emotional tone of yesterday's 45-minute ceremony for Ramon. Images evoking space flight were everywhere: On the blue-and-white backdrop behind the coffin were a smattering of white, planetlike orbs, encircling a passage from the Book of Deuteronomy that read, ''In the heavens above and on the earth below.'' Several NASA officials and astronauts attended the service. President Moshe Katsav of Israel, in his speech, read the names of the six other Columbia members as an honor roll. Several speakers said that Ramon's legacy would always be a touchstone for future Israeli astronauts, and Sharon promised there would be more like him. ''His youthful face, his eternal smile, his fresh countenance, the twinkle in his eyes, penetrated our souls,'' the prime minister said. ''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.'' Late in the service, Rona and Assaf Ramon rose and walked over about 8 feet behind Ramon's coffin, which sat on a wooden black riser that had been hammered together just an hour earlier. Speaking in Hebrew, Rona Ramon announced that she and her son would read a letter that a fellow Columbia astronaut, David Brown, had sent to the Ramon family on the shuttle's final day in space. Assaf read each sentence in English, and his mother followed in Hebrew. ''My most moving moment was reading a letter Ilan brought from a Holocaust survivor, talking about his 7-year-old daughter who did not survive,'' Assaf read. Brown said it was hard to understand how such tragedy could happen, but added, ''It makes me want to enjoy every bit of the earth for how great it really is. ''I will make one more observation: If I'd been born in space, I know I would desire to visit the beautiful earth more than I've ever yearned to visit space.'' Concluding, mother and son broke from their alternating translations and spoke together, in Hebrew and English, ''It is a beautiful planet.'' The sight of Assaf entering the hangar in his father's jacket, and standing a few inches taller beside his mother, caused some audience members to crumple forward in emotion. Others wept openly. And at least a few people smiled broadly as they watched the young man, who had said, shortly after his father lifted off into space, that he too would like to become a pilot and an astronaut. Ramon will be buried today during a private ceremony at a military cemetery in Nahalal, in northern Israel. Patrick Healy can be reached by e-mail at phealy@globe.com.
This story ran on page A6 of the Boston Globe on 2/11/2003.
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OD AIR FORCE BASE, Israel -- The president and the prime minister, the defense minister and the deputy US ambassador all filed one-by-one before the casket, draped with the blue-and-white Israeli flag, and offered warm tributes to the fallen astronaut, Ilan Ramon. But it was the sight of Ramon's teenage son Assaf, wearing his father's blue-and-white NASA jacket, that had tears welling in so many eyes in Israel yesterday.
