NETANYAHU TALKS WITH AGEING RABBI KADOURI IN JERUSALEM, 1997-10-21 (photo)

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu leans to ageing Rabbi Yitzhak Kadouri (L) as they talk while Netanyahu visits the ageing mystic Rabbi on the occasion of their birthdays today, October 21. Netanyahu is 48 and Rabbi Kadouri, a mystic rabbi with a large Sephardic Jewish following, is in his nineties. Last Friday Netanyahu said he hopes to forge a compromise on the thorny topic of Jewish conversions that will satisfy Israel's Orthodox establishment and the more liberal U.S. Jewish majority. Orthodox Jewish lawmakers in his coalition are battling attempts by leaders of Reform and Conservative Jews to break the Orthodox monopoly on religious affairs in Israel. ISRAEL NETANYAHU