Fact v. Opinion

What is a nice Jewish boy from Brooklyn doing posing as a hard-eyed Arab on the cover of Newsweek? "We couldn't find any Arabs," explained Manhattan Talent Agent Steve Kaye. His firm had been commissioned to find a model for a photo that would show an Arab holding a gasoline hose. The theme: "Arab Oil Squeeze." Kaye volunteered his own bearded, dark visage and even provided a headdress -one that he had bought, of course, in Israel, where his brother lives on a kibbutz.

"How was Newsweek to know I'd been bar-mitzvahed 20 years ago?" asks Kaye, 33. "All they knew was that they needed an Arab fast and I looked like one in the picture" To get the perfect shot, Kaye and photographers took over a gas station in Queens. "A crowd formed as soon as we got there," recalls Kaye, "and I was afraid the Jewish Defense League might show up." His caftan wasn't blown until one of Kaye's clients in radio saw the magazine and announced to his listeners, "That's no Arab, that's my Jewish agent." For his own part, Kaye says he is worried that his Zionist grandmother will be offended and he is concerned that he has been typecast. So he won't be able to pose as Moshe Dayan some day. On the other hand, he did not have to split the $200 modeling fee with an agent.

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