Mariah Carey to visit Israel

Both the singer and her beau, Australian businessman James Packer, reportedly have ties to Jewish state

American singer Mariah Carey will be making a quick visit to Israel this weekend with Australian businessman James Packer, whom she is dating.

The couple reportedly plans to visit Jerusalem, Tel Aviv and the Dead Sea.

If the visit is successful, a concert may be planned in the future, Carey’s associates said.

Mariah Carey, who has a close Israeli friend, Liron Dagan, has shown her connection to Israel before. She has tweeted holiday wishes to her Jewish fans, sang “Hatikvah,” Israel’s national anthem, in Adam Sandler’s 2006 film You Don’t Mess with the Zohan, and spoke in Hebrew to an Israeli-born contestant on American Idol in 2013, describing her performance as “sababa,” or cool. (The contestant, who happened to be Shira Gavrielov, daughter of Israeli singer Mickey Gavrielov, did not win.)

Packer, who reportedly bought a house in Israel recently and has business interests here, is said to be a friend of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

At the Anti-Defamation League Entertainment Industry Awards dinner last April, one of the honorees, film producer Brett Ratner, who founded the film finance production and media company RatPac Entertainment with Packer in 2013, called him “the first non-Jewish Zionist in history.” Ratner went so far as to say that Packer had taken Israeli citizenship — a claim that an official of Packer’s office later denied.