Ramon memorialized in moving ceremony Tovah Lazaroff Jerusalem Post February 11, 2003 Nestled in her mother's arms, Noa Ramon, five, listened as her father's former commander stood by Col. Ilan Ramon's flag-draped coffin, playing the tune "Can you hear my voice, O my love afar" on the saxophone. In happier times, flushed with the success of the shuttle Columbia's 16-day space flight, Rona Ramon arranged for her husband to wake up one morning in space to the song, a musical adaptation of the poem by Rachel. Late Monday afternoon, a more mournful adaptation, without words, opened a solemn ceremony held at the IDF air base near Ben-Gurion Airport an hour after Ramon's coffin arrived from the US on its final journey to the Moshav Nahalal cemetery. His widow and four children arrived earlier in the day from Houston, where they have lived for the last four years. "This is not how you imagined how we all imagined your homecoming,"said Prime Minister Ariel Sharon. "Ilan, the son of a mother who survived the Holocaust, and a father who is a veteran of the War of Independence, was a courageous combat pilot and an outstanding officer, and was among the best of our sons and warriors. "On his last mission he soared higher than any other Israeli, and realized his dream." Speaking to the family, including Ramon's father Eliezer Wolferman, Sharon said, "The pain you suffer is the pain we all suffer. Ilan has touched the hidden spot in every Jew's heart. His youthful face, his eternal smile, his fresh countenance, the twinkle in his eyes penetrated our souls. 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." After reading read from an e-mail written by astronaut David Brown on the final day of the mission, Rona Ramon and her son, Assaf, 15, walked to the coffin together and touched it before returning to their seats. Assaf, who has told the media he wants to follow in his father's footsteps, was wearing a blue flight jacket with a shuttle insignia and an Israeli flag on the left sleeve. Before the shuttle broke up, President Moshe Katsav said, he had wondered how to welcome Ramon back and to convey his pride in his achievements. He noted that Ramon had twice represented Israel in moments of international significance: first as a young fighter pilot in 1981, when he helped destroyed the unfinished Osirak nuclear reactor in Iraq, and on this mission, as Israel's first astronaut, when he helped advance scientific research. Katsav referred to an e-mail Ramon had written to him from space in which he described how upon seeing Jerusalem from the shuttle, he spontaneously recited the prayer Shma Yisrael. Ramon continued: "I believe, as I said a few times earlier, that we have in Israel the best people with phenomenal abilities, and it takes only the right leadership to lead the people of Israel to reach the sky! "Mr. President... please convey my deep appreciation to all Israel's citizens, and let them know that I am honored to be their first representative ever in space. In our mission, we have a variety of international scientific experiments and scientists working... for the benefit of all mankind. From space our world looks as one unit without borders. So let me call from up here in space let's work our way for peace and better life for every one on Earth." Katsav said that Ramon became a Jewish international hero, not just because he participated in the shuttle mission, but because of the symbolism he brought to the mission by his decision to honor the Jewish heritage through the objects he brought with him and the respect he showed for the Jewish religion while in space. Aside from personal family items, Ramon brought a small Torah scroll rescued from the Holocaust and preserved by a survivor and a copy of a small pencil drawing, titled '"Moon Landscape,"' by Peter Ginz, a 14-year-old killed at Auschwitz. The drawing shows Earth as seen from the moon. Ramon also chose to eat kosher and to try to keep Shabbat in space. At a time when the Jewish people is so divided, comes a single man, who in the last days of his short life, knew how to bring everyone together, the Right and the Left, the secular and the religious, Katsav said. In his remarks, Sharon said that Ramon also symbolized the deep connection between Israel and the US. "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. A day will come when other Israelis will be launched into space in the service of science and progress. For them and for us, Ilan Ramon will always be a source of inspiration, as Israel's space pioneer." The coffin was carried back out into the rain and into a waiting military vehicle by eight air force pilots. The family followed, with Rona Ramon holding her daughter's hand. Among the mourners was Indian Ambassador Raminder S. Jassal, who noted that as one of the American astronauts, Kalpana Chawla, was Indian born, he was glad to be at the ceremony in solidarity to share Israel's grief. American astronaut Garret Reisman, who is Jewish and knew Ramon, said he was one of seven astronauts who came for the ceremony three others from the US, one from Canada, and two from Europe. "I remember Ilan as a confident optimist,"he said. "He never had any doubts, he understood the delays, it never troubled him. He would say, 'It's okay,' and I have a feeling that he would say the same thing now if he were able to. He would say, 'It's is something that happened, life will go on, other Israelis will fly, other people will fly in space and the work will continue.' That's the kind of guy he was. "I would go to talk with him about Israeli events, at the time he was with us there were many momentous events that happened in Israel, and I would be angry about some of the tragedies and I would talk to Ilan and he would comfort me." Reisman said he last saw him a week before the mission, just as the crew was entering the quarantine. "I wished him a good flight. He said, 'Thank you' and that was it." Reisman said the ceremony was moving. "But it makes it surreal, we had the ceremony last Tuesday back in the States and it makes it seem like some kind of a terrible dream, because we have lost our friends and the way we lost them was already hard to comprehend." Also among the mourners was former president Ezer Weizman and his wife Reuma, who had become friends with Ramon over the last three years and had received a number of e-mails from him while he was in space. She said she was so excited to hear from him that she let out a scream which could be heard all over the house.