ALIYA

What happens when young Grace Kelly, or rather Philadelphia Main Liner Merideth Sloane, goes to Israel on a job for the Metropolitan Museum of Art (she works for the museum and is off to inspect the archaeological dig that the Met is sponsoring and which may yield some major Christian relic--is the Holy Grail too much to hope for?) and soon finds herself in the arms of the curly-headed commando Arik, a native Israeli whose eyes are like the sea and who will never leave Israel to live with his emigrant parents in Princeton, New Jersey, despite his having a Harvard M.A. in philosophy--he who is now a supertawny lion wreaking vengeance upon terrorists and making Israel safe for the folks picking oranges and watching Kojak reruns in black-and-white in their kibbutz livingrooms? Hm? Will moneyfingered Meri, who is romanced by film producers and Greek tycoons and figures thrice weekly in society columns, give up lobster bisque and her pettish, priggish married lover Roger and make aliya--a journey to accept Israel as her new homeland (she's not Jewish)? The terrorist attack on Arik's sister's kibbutz shows Meri what a coward she is. But there's a brief intermezzo with Arik back in Manhattan, then it's off again to guns and terrorists, with Meri carrying Arik's baby and the inevitable fatal bullet waiting for him. A shot at a four-handkerchief tearjerker that will have its audience--but we call it horsefeathers.