They are mostly Jews, no Arab to proclaim religious diversity, no ultra-orthodox Druze to provoke controversy, no Indian descendant to track her roots to where Mumtaz lay. No huge symbolism here.

But as they stand for the obligatory group shot, the tall Galit Amara, with curly hair and Ethiopian parentage, beside the Russia-born, blond, blue-eyed Polina Miro and the 19-year-old Karin Cohen whose parents are Moroccan, they show, like an unrolled map, the immigrants’ trails to the Promised Land.

“But I really can’t find any differences. We are all Israelis,” Amara shrugs, before joining the 18-24-year-olds — chosen from over 2,000 applicants — preening before the marble that gleams like warm, molten butter on a winter morning.

This is part of their photo shoot for the show’s promotional, says Iris Cohen, national director of the Miss Israel pageant, who has been taking these women, most of them on their first trip outside their country, through Jaipur, Mumbai and Agra, before flying to Delhi tomorrow.

Michael, the 19-year-old from Jerusalem, the soldier who has taken a break from compulsory military service to learn some ramp-walk, wouldn’t talk about Hamas or the gunshots in Gaza. “Politics is there. In Israel, it is part of everybody’s lives, but I just want to project my country’s beauty. I know it has become a joke that every Miss Universe wants world peace but I want peace at home first,” she said. “Oh, I just want a car,” the green-eyed Rotem Zrihen throws her head back in laughter.

The innocence might just cost the 22-year-old the crown but then they are youngsters who dream of Dior and Calvin Klein; who, when the shoot got over, quickly untie their ghaghra-cholis to breathe easy in tank tops, tights and denims, and scurry away from the past for a slice of pizza at the Hut.