Stepping into Miri Mesika’s Tel Aviv apartment, it’s hard to tell she’s one of Israel’s most beloved singers. The design isn’t particularly modern or glamorous, especially by Hollywood standards, and it’s got the usual household clutter: appliances, books, furniture. Only a home studio decorated with album plaques in one corner gives away Mesika’s stature.
It’s easy to understand Shahar Sorek’s immediate attraction to Agne Kudreviciute. The Lithuanian beauty, of mixed Polish and Russian heritage, would be the perfect casting choice for Snow White: long, black hair; light skin; striking green eyes; and a princesslike demeanor.
Arab workers are taking down a roof of a caravilla in the coastal town of Nitzan. They’re stacking the terra cotta tiles, leaving standing a framework of fading, mustard-colored, thin walls made of wallboard. The residents are moving out, and the shell of their former house is about to be loaded on a truck, to be transported and recycled by Israeli government.
In Kamran Pasha’s new historical novel, “Shadow of the Swords” (Simon & Schuster: $16), a feisty, beautiful Jewish heroine named Miriam falls in love with the legendary Muslim sultan, Saladin, as he seeks to guard the Holy Land from the Third Crusades at the turn of the 12th century. If that doesn’t sound racy enough, Miriam is the fictional niece of Maimonides (aka Rambam for Jews and Ibn Maimum for Muslims), who is also Saladin’s trusted adviser and courtier.
When Capt. John D., an Israeli university student and champion swimmer, was called up as a reserves commando of Shayetet 13 — Israel’s equivalent of the U.S. Navy SEALs — to train for the operation to stop the “Gaza Freedom Flotilla,” he says he expressed immediate concern regarding the use of paintball guns, a training weapon.
