Rona Ramon And Children Will Reportedly Seek US Citizenship

The widow of Israel's space martyr, Col. Ilan Ramon (Israeli Defense Force), has returned to Houston after what the Jerusalem Post describes as a long and emotionally difficult summer. The Ramons' children have spent the past five years attending school in the US while Ilan trained with NASA. Rona is said to want them to stay.

"She has a son close to finishing high school," said Prof. Joachim Joseph, who worked with Ilan Ramon on an experiment in space and who became close friends in the process. "If he were to return now he would be at a great disadvantage."

All of Israel celebrated Columbia's launch on January 16th. Members of the Israeli diplomatic corps based throughout the United States said the entire country was riveted by images and messages from the Israeli Air Force pilot while aboard the shuttle.

Several diplomats from the Israeli embassy, including the ambassador, as well as workers at Israeli consulates throughout the US were in Houston and at Florida's Kennedy Space Center to welcome their hero home when he and the six other astronauts aboard Columbia were killed in the tragedy.

Since her husband's death, Joseph says Rona has been on an emotional roller coaster, soaring at memorials for her husband (which included the dedication of a new park named for Ilan) and the utter devastation of losing him. At the Israeli park dedication in Givat Shmuel, Rona, who has a large family in Israel, said she would stay nearby so that she could visit often. But she returned to the US recently to be with her children and get them ready for the new school year.

"It's difficult to take kids that are troubled and get them into a new school," Joseph said. "Even the little girl [Noa, aged five] speaks English. It's not easy to make a switch."

The NASA community has a reputation of being close, and Joseph said the Ramon family entered that community wholeheartedly when they moved there for Ilan Ramon's astronaut training, beginning in 1998. He said NASA has provided a great deal of support for all of the families of the seven Columbia astronauts who died in the accident.

But support from the close-knitted families of NASA astronauts in Houston, however, may not be enough to keep the surviving Ramons there forever. The rabbi of Rona Ramon's synagogue in Houston, Stuart Federow, said he doesn't think Rona will become a permanent citizen of the US.

"She's got kids in school, and they've had one heck of a traumatic experience with the loss of their father," Federow said.

"She was not ready to rip them out of the school system three months into the year. What she will do down the road I don't know for sure. But I have sincere doubts about her making Texas her home over Israel."

Federow saw Rona Ramon recently at the dedication of a stained-glass window in the synagogue in honor of the astronauts. Rona Ramon said at the event: "I think more than anything the crew was special because of the incredible people. Everyone was from a different background, but they came to respect and love each other as a family."

ANN Correspondent Dave Bender in Jerusalem contributed to this report.

FMI: www.nasa.gov/columbia/crew/profile_ilanr.html