Copyright 1998 The Jerusalem Post The Jerusalem Post March 27, 1998, Friday ARTS; Pg. 15 : 1106 words : Xena, savior of the Jews BY: Calev Ben-David HIGHLIGHT: Channel Surfing BODY: There's an old joke that perfectly illustrates Hollywood's somewhat cavalier attitude to the Bible. It seems that after Cecil B. DeMille, director of such wonderfully cheesy epics as Samson and Delilah and The Ten Commandants, passed on, he found himself standing at the end of a long line of souls waiting to pass through the pearly gates of Heaven. An impatient DeMille, not used to waiting for anything, cut to the front of the line, only to be reprimanded by one of the angels. "Look buddy," snarled DeMille in response, "you just go in there and tell your boss: I made him ... and I can break him! Even old C.B. , whose approach to the Bible was, shall we say, extremely midrashic, might have been taken aback by Xena, Warrior Princess. A few months back I wrote about this cheesy sword-and-sorcery series which airs on Channel 3 Thursday nights at 9: 10. It stars a strapping and buxom Australian actress, Lucy Lawless, as the Amazonian mercenary Xena, who stomps around a Hellenistic never-never land chopping baddies down, while engaging in some oddly Sapphic glances and banter with her sidekick, a little blonde crumpet named Gabrielle. Although a fan of the Conan the Barbarian books in my youth, I confess to not being a regular viewer of Xena. But my curiosity was sparked after reading in the new and improved Jerusalem Post TV listings the following preview synopsis of last week's episode: "Xena assists the people of Israel in defeating the Philistines." After double- checking the Book of Judges and Louis Ginzberg's classic Legend of the Jews and finding no mention of Xena, I felt this was one episode no keen student of Jewish history could afford to miss. It started with Xena running into her old friend Goliath, who turns out to be a fellow soldier of fortune in the pay of the Philistines, and actually not such a bad guy at all. The Philistines also try to buy Xena's services, but she has some moral qualms. "Why are you persecuting the Israelites?" she asks nasty Philistine chief Dagan; "You can't just come into a country and take another people's land." "Why, the Israelites are barbarians," responds an agitated Dagan. "This country was just desert when we got here; we're the ones who made it bloom," he goes on, sounding like a typical JNF spokesman. Since this Land of Israel looks a lot like the lush forests of New Zealand where Xena is filmed, these Philistines certainly have reason to be proud of their horticult ural skills. Still, it's somewhat irksome to find such obvious anti-Zionist sentiments expressed in a grade-B adolescent TV series. My esteemed Post colleague Moshe Kohn, always vigilant for anti-Israeli media propaganda in his "A View from Nov" column, will no doubt have to keep a close eye on Xena in the future (yes, it's a dirty job, but someone... ) Things get increasingly silly after Xena goes over to the Israelite side and meets the young poet-warrior David. "Have you heard of Xena?" her sidekick Gabrielle asks David. "Of course," David replies. "I've even written psalms (!) about her." Exactly what psalm is that, I wonder? Maybe number 30, which would explain the line: "Thou did loosen my sackcloth and gird me with gladness." Anyway, this David is a real hunk, and Gabrielle, apparently tiring of Xena's charms, starts making goo-goo eyes at him. Unfortunately, David introduces her to a comely Israelite woman and says, "This is Sarah. We're to be married in a few months." (I guess Michal doesn't sound Jewish enough.) It turns out that it is Xena who reveals to the Israelites that the secret of killing Goliath is to conk him between the eyes. David goes off to meet the giant, but not before telling Gabrielle: "I've just written a new psalm. Want to hear it? 'The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want...'" David duly dispatches Goliath with considerable help from the warrior princess. "Xena," King Saul tells her, "the people of Abraham owe you a debt of gratitude." Even DeMille would have found that one hard to swallow. Why is it that Xena's role in our history has been written out of the Bible? I guess it wouldn't have looked good to a have a butch shiksa saving David's bacon from the Philistines. Anyway, it's nice to see our cable companies doing their bit to increase the Jewish content on The Family Channel. [snip] GRAPHIC: Photo: Who would have thought that it was warrior princess Xena (Lucy Lawless) who saved Israel from the Philistines?