DESPITE THE fierce competition between reality television shows, Kochav Nolad (A Star is Born) host Zvika Hadar is in a better position for the coming season than celebrated broadcast journalists Ofer Shelah and Ravid Druker, whose Friday night news and current affairs show, Shishi, completed a three-year run on Channel 10 last Friday. In an attempt to boost its ratings, Channel 10 is introducing a new format, with Guy Zohar in the hot seat. The show is due to air before the end of the month, but even though Zohar has been arduously working on it, it's still not ready for an unveiling. There's no telling whether it will make the deadline.

MANY POETS and songwriters express personal feelings in their creative endeavors. Michal Amdurski is no exception, and she is painfully honest on her new disc, Ishto Shel (The Wife Of), in which she responds to criticism that she has no talent, that she can't sing and that the only reason she got anywhere was because she was "the wife of." The dissolution of her marriage to Assaf Amdurski was not an easy time for her, especially as the Hebrew gossip columns were salivating about his new lady friends long before the divorce became final. In addition, Michal was left with two very young children to care for. The disc expresses much of what she felt over the past year.

PRIZE-WINNING actor Moshe Ivgi has joined the campaign of Israel Prize laureate Rabbi Yitzhak David Grossman of Migdal Ha'emek in trying to raise sufficient funds to ensure that the poor do not go hungry on Pessah. Ivgi has been broadcasting a radio appeal for funds for more than a week. Grossman is famous for haunting discos and persuading wayward youth to rehabilitate themselves through one of his programs.

A HEADLINE on the Celebrity News page of Us magazine's Web site states that Leonardo DiCaprio and Israeli model Bar Refaeli "are not engaged." The background to the story is that Refaeli started wearing a gold ring on a daily basis, leading to speculation that the on-again off-again highly publicized romance might finally become rooted in marriage - or that a secret wedding had already taken place. But apparently, it was simply that Refaeli liked this particular ring, which was too big for her pinkie, so she popped it onto the next finger, which aroused attention and gave the gossip mongers additional food for thought.

FAMOUS WOMEN don't stop being interesting or glamorous after they've passed a certain age - at least not in Israel. Yediot Aharonot, in its Modern Times section, featured actress, television and radio personality Rivka Michaeli looking much younger than her 71 years, and certainly much better than she did before the breakup seven months ago of her 17-year marriage to her second husband, Reuven Sharoni. In the interim, Michaeli has shed 10 kg., but she says that the real reason that she looks so good is that as a single woman, she can be spontaneous and do the things she wants to do. Fellow actress and Israel Prize-laureate Lia Koenig is somewhat older than Michaeli, but she looks much younger than her years. This may be attributed to her vivacious personality. Koenig was selected by Shamenet, the Haaretz lifestyle magazine, to model a series of classic but ultra-fashionable garments. The actress hammed it up for the camera, and the fabulous results show that she was having a great time.

FILM DIRECTOR Avi Nesher (The Secrets) is having problems making a movie based on Italian author Erri De Luca's book God's Mountain (Montedidio), about a young boy's meeting with an elderly Neapolitan Jew who is a Holocaust survivor. Four years ago, Nesher, together with Micha Shagrir and Moshe and Leon Ederi, signed a contract with De Luca for the film rights to the book, but differences with the Italian producers have put the production on hold. No date has been set for resolving these differences, so it's possible that the film may never see the light of day.

Celebrity Grapevine

Film director Avi Nesher is having trouble getting 'God's Mountain' made into a movie.