As the first Israeli astronaut, Ilan Ramon felt that he was “representing all Jews and all Israelis.”
Ilan Ramon, an Israeli child of Holocaust survivors, was the first astronaut ever to request kosher food and to observe the Sabbath in space.
An Israeli combat pilot and, later, the first Israeli astronaut for NASA, Ramon was the only foreign recipient of the US Congressional Space Medal of Honor.
He and six others were killed in the failed Space Shuttle Columbia mission on February 1, 2003. He was 48.
Watch this beautiful tribute to Ilan Ramon and hear his expressed hope for world peace.
