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IAF Col. Ilan Ramon
In 1981, IAF Col. Ilan Ramon flew one of the F-16 jets that blew up the Iraqi
nuclear reactor in Osirak. In so doing, he saved the country and perhaps the
entire world from the specter of a nuclear holocaust.
For 16 days, as Israel’s first astronaut, Ilan Ramon again saved us. This time
he was not armed with a payload of bombs on a fighter craft. This time Ramon set
off for outer space on the Columbia space shuttle, armed with a picture of the
Earth as seen from the moon drawn by a Jewish boy in Theresienstadt
concentration camp, a Torah scroll from Bergen Belsen, a microfiche copy of the
Bible, the Israeli flag, and the dreams and hopes of the State of Israel and the
Jewish people. Ramon saved us this time not by clearing our skies of the threat
of nuclear attack, but by reminding us of who we are and of what we can
accomplish if we only have faith in ourselves.
Ramon made clear at every opportunity that he went to outer space not simply as
a citizen of the State of Israel, but as a Jew. As the representative of the
Jewish people, he recited Kiddush on Friday night. As a Jew, he said Shema
Yisrael as the space shuttle orbited over Jerusalem. As a Jew he insisted on
eating only kosher food in outer space. And as a Jew he told the Prime Minister
from his celestial perch, “I think it is very, very important to preserve our
historical tradition, and I mean historical and religious traditions.
In so doing he showed that there is no limit to what a person can accomplish as
a Jew. He said to all Jews, in Israel and throughout the world, even as
anti-Semitism again threatens us, even as Jews in Israel are being murdered just
for being Jews, our enemies will never define us or tell us there are limits to
what we can do.
But Ilan Ramon was not simply a Jew. He was an Israeli Jew. And, as a scientist
and fighter pilot, his was the face of Israeli exceptionalism. Ramon excelled in
all he did. He was first in his class in high school. He was first in his class
in flight school. He was first in his class in astronaut training. In a break
from the Air Force in the 1980s after completing his studies in electrical
engineering and computer science at Tel Aviv University, Ramon joined the team
at Israel Aircraft Industries that developed the Lavi environmental research on
desertification.
Today, when mediocrity seems to be the unifying characteristic of so many of the
personalities that make up our national landscape, Ramon reminded us of what we
can and should aspire to. Speaking of Ramon a few months before the shuttle
launch, his fellow astronauts praised his professionalism above all.
As Israel has been consumed for more than two years with the daily reality of
terrorism and pain, Ramon reminded us that there are other sides to our lives in
Israel. Our mastery of science has placed our tiny state at the cutting edge of
space research. Like our friends, the Americans, we will not be limited by
gravity in our quest for answers to the riddles of the universe.
--from the Jerusalem Post
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