25/6/97

Over the moon, down to earth

    It was one small step for Neil Armstrong, but a giant leap for Hava Levi.
    Hava was over the moon just 24 hours after man landed on it. That was the day her life changed dramatically -- the day she was a Miss Universe finalist.
    If you ever wondered what the country's most beautiful 18-year-old looks like 28 years later, pack a lunch and spend an afternoon gawking at Hava through her storefront window at 203 Dizengoff in Tel Aviv. (Yeah, some nut might just do that.) If you're a flag-waving feminist who thinks no self-respecting woman should be seen without a chador, maybe you should skip this column entirely.
    Hava no longer stops traffic when she moves her long, lithe legs. Men don't gasp anymore when her Hollywoodish 5-foot-9 body enters a room. Women probably don't seethe with jealousy anymore at her hypnotic 34-24-34 figure,  sparkling green eyes, dark blonde hair.
    She may be well into middle age, but the joyride ain't yet over. Hava's got a lot going for her: character, humility, confidence, success, perspective -- and on top of all that, she still looks gr-r-r-reat.
    And she's got memories ....
    "In the Miss Israel contest in Jerusalem, when Teddy Kollek called my name and they put the crown on my head, and hundreds of reporters and photographers came at me, at that moment I realized my life had changed. Suddenly, I was somebody.
    "They took me by taxi to Netanya, to a hotel where all the girls were staying. It was 2 a.m., and I was tired, and in those days they made a construction site out of hair, a beehive style. When I arrived I probably looked awful, and the reception clerk looked at me and said,  'this is Miss Israel?' That brought me down to earth and I understood not everybody will think I'm beautiful."
    The blushingly shy girl from Haifa won a spot on the world stage, in Miami Beach, a few miles from where the astronauts rocketed to glory.
    "It was my first time out of Israel. I was Jewish in Miami Beach, so I was a star; they all wanted to marry me to their sons.
    "It was so exciting, the day after the moon landing. They took us to Cape Kennedy to see the button that was pushed to put a man on the moon.
    "Bob Barker was the emcee, and when they asked the question -- I didn't want an interpreter, I said I knew English, but I didn't really -- they asked how I would entertain the first man on the moon if he landed next to my house. It was a stupid question. I didn't understand the word 'entertain,' so I asked Bob Barker, and he said, 'to have fun.' I guess I lost some points on that."
    She also apparently didn't understand the word "man." The Jerusalem Post reported that Hava, when asked to write on a form who she thought was the greatest man in the world, wrote: "Mrs. Golda Meir."
    She finished fourth behind Misses Philippines, Australia and Finland.
    "I became friendly with Miss Tunisia, a beautiful girl named Zohara. We roomed together. She lived in Paris and spoke only French, I spoke a bit of English, but somehow we became very good friends. All the newspapers made a big thing out of it."
    She smiles, but sadly. "Israelis were popular then, more than now."
    She was there as Miss Israel, not as Hava Levi. She loves her country deeply, and aches from every lash it takes.
    "I was a representative of Israel, I went to the Foreign Ministry and they lectured me how to speak, what to say. It was a big responsibility.
    "We stayed in Miami Beach for a month, then we went to Brazil. I was away for six months, then came back. I wanted to go to the army."
    As you can imagine, this conscript didn't get lost in the crowd. "When I went to basic training, 800 girls stared at me, but I behaved normal, so they got used to me."
    "I lived away from Israel for two years, in New York, and hated every minute of it. To be a Jew in the Diaspora was a big shock to me. Here, you have an identity, you belong to a place. On Yom Kippur in New York -- my husband's family was very religious -- I saw Jews working, I hated it."
    It was an early, short and unsuccessful marriage. After a couple of years, at age 29, she gladly came home. "I'm first an Israeli and then a Jew, and for some reason my husband was jealous of that."
    She didn't remarry until some years later, and is now content to leave the glamor behind and become just plain old Mom. Not so her 12-year-old daughter and nine-year-old son.
    "I never told my daughter I was Miss Israel. When she was four, one day I came home and she said to me, 'Mommy, were you a queen?' She heard it from the other girls. I had to tell her.
    "My son is very, uh, interested in it." She laughs. "He said, 'you know, Mommy, when you were young, you were more beautiful.' He says it's very important to him that I shouldn't get old."
    Age, she says, provides security. "I don't compete with younger girls; I'm trying to enjoy this age. At 40 you wise up, take stock. You can't lie to yourself.
    "I accept getting older. I can't say it doesn't bother me at all, but I don't spend my life counting wrinkles."
    Hava has a wholesome attitude because of her upbringing: her parents are both Polish-born Holocaust survivors -- her mother, at the age of 20, walked to Russia, arriving a day before Hitler's invasion -- and came here in 1948, on the Exodus.
    "My mother always taught me I should account for myself, that it's important to be independent, to study, that beauty is not everything. She's a big Zionist. She taught me that this is my homeland, that I should never forget that. My upbringing helped me keep sight of proportions -- that it doesn't pay to let it go to your head, because a year later there's another beauty queen.
    "Even after I became Miss Israel, I was very down to earth. It changed me in a good sense. I understood it was just a business, actually -- that you're not really the most beautiful girl in the world.
    "Winning it wasn't the main thing in my life. It was a goal: I used it.
    "I was lucky to win, and get good things out of it. Some beauty queens don't. Some just forget it after a year and get married and make kids and get fat. I didn't do that. I made the most of it."
    Hava went on to become a successful model for 15 years, and now runs her own Dizengoff Street fashion boutique, Lace.
    She has served as judge at more recent Miss Israel contests. "I saw some girls who didn't win leave the stage before it ended." She shrugs nonjudgmentally.
    "Girls now are much more aware. When I was 18 I was so naive. Now, they're business-minded, they know what they want; they're very secure, much more mature. For girls now the world is so open, they know everything. They can travel when they want, they have what they want.
    "Women of the older generations, they had a tough life, and it shows. But women my age, today they're not considered old anymore. I see a