[texhax] Hebrew fonts with XeLaTeX

[Moshe Kamensky]

Hi there,

I am trying write a document in Hebrew, using XeLaTeX. Things mostly 
seem to work, except for some issues which, I think, are related to 
fonts.

I tried using either the Cardo or the Ezra SIL fonts, both of which I 
found recommended in various place on the web. The main problem is that 
I cannot get bold and italic text to work. In fact, it seems that the 
whole text is in bold. Commands like \emph and \textbf seem to have no 
effect. In the log file I see:

(fontspec)  <->"Ezra SIL/ICU:script=hebr;language=DFLT;"

 fontspec info: Could not resolve font Ezra SIL/B (it probably doesn't exist).

 fontspec info: Could not resolve font Ezra SIL/I (it probably doesn't exist).

 fontspec info: Could not resolve font Ezra SIL/BI (it probably doesn't 
 exist).

And later:

LaTeX Font Warning: Font shape `EU1/EzraSIL(0)/bx/n' undefined
(Font)              using `EU1/EzraSIL(0)/m/n' instead on input line 179.

LaTeX Font Warning: Font shape `EU1/EzraSIL(0)/m/sc' undefined
(Font)              using `EU1/EzraSIL(0)/m/n' instead on input line 181.

LaTeX Font Warning: Font shape `EU1/EzraSIL(0)/m/it' undefined
(Font)              using `EU1/EzraSIL(0)/m/n' instead on input line 196.

LaTeX Font Warning: Font shape `EU1/EzraSIL(0)/bx/it' undefined
(Font)              using `EU1/EzraSIL(0)/bx/n' instead on input line 207.


Which seems to suggest that these variants don't exist. So my questions 
here are, whether they really don't exist, or should I use some 
different commands? And if they don't exist, is there some other Hebrew 
font where they do exist? Is there a way to "produce" bold and italic 
variants? Also, is there a way to make the normal text less bold? As it 
is, it is very hard to visually spot the theorems, proofs, etc.

Another issue, which I believe is also font related, is that the space 
between the lines is very uneven, depending on whether I have some math 
or English text in the adjacent lines. Is there a way to fix it?

Thanks,
Moshe