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 “An Article of Hope” at 6th Los Angeles Jewish Film Festival
touches all humanity

By Ron Gilbert

I was
extremely moved by this documentary which goes way beyond the Jewish community
and is an inspiration to all races and religions.

In addition
to having astronaut Buzz Aldrin present to discuss his feelings about this film
were a moment that all of us were extremely fortunate to experience.

Director
Dan Cohen was inspired 7 years ago when he read an article in the Style section
of the newspaper regarding the Shuttle Columbia. In this  documentary he dives into the early life of Col.
Ilan Ramon who was a fighter pilot in the Israeli Air
Force, and later the first Israeli astronaut,
who blasted off on the Shuttle Columbia in 2003 on which Ramon was the space shuttle
payload specialist of STS-107, the fatal mission of Columbia, where he and six other crew
members were killed in the re-entry accident.

We discover
that his mother and grandmother were survivors of the Auschwitz
concentration camp and his first name, Ilan
means "tree" in Hebrew and his branches reached out to everyone who
ever met him. We are shown footage aboard STS-107,  where Ramon carried a pencil sketch,
"Moon Landscape", drawn by 16-year-old Petr Ginz,
who died in Auschwitz.
Ramon also took with him a microfiche copy of the Torah given to him by
Israeli president Moshe Katsav and a miniature Torah scroll (from the
Holocaust) that was given him by Prof. Yehoyachin Yosef, a Bergen Belsen
survivor.Ramon asked the 1939 Club, a Holocaust survivor organization in Los Angeles,
for a symbol of the Holocaust to take into outer space with him. A barbed wire mezuzah
by the San Francisco artist Aimee Golant was selected.
Ramon also took with him a dollar of the Lubavitcher Rebbe, Rabbi Menachem M. Schneerson.

The "Miracle" of this film is the 37 pages from
the diary he was keeping while in orbit and survived the crash and was returned
to his widow, Rona, who has shared them in this film and talks about her
husband in revered tones. Only 2 pages of the diary was partially restored in 1
year, and needed 4 more, for police scientists to decipher 80% of the text. Zalmona
stated: "The diary survived extreme heat in the explosion, extreme
atmospheric cold, and then "was attacked by microorganisms and insects.
It's almost a miracle that it survived — it's incredible. There is 'no rational
explanation' for how it was recovered when most of the shuttle was not, he
said. Ramon wrote on the last day of the journal:

"Today
was the first day that I felt that I am truly living in space. I have become a
man who lives and works in space."

Inscribed
in black ink and pencil it covered just the first six days of the 16-day
mission. The papers remained white even though, exposed at high speed 37 miles
above the Earth, they should have super-heated and burned. Other fragile items
withstood the disaster as well, some even in a better shape, 

Also the
film explores the relationship and the bond formed by all other members of the
crew when they spend their time on excursions and the connections are heartfelt.

Ramon and
the rest of the Columbia crew died over East Texas in the Southern United States during entry into
Earth's atmosphere, 16 minutes prior to the scheduled landing.  From the "Depths of hell to the heights
of space," his simple gesture would serve to honor the hope of a nation
and to fulfill a promise made to generations past and future.

Ilan Ramon
is the only foreign recipient of the United States
Congressional Space Medal of Honor.

The Los
Angeles Jewish Film Festival dates are May 5-May 12

Please
check out the film schedule and locations.

www.lajfilmfest.org