NEWS LITE : LA SCALA PERFORMS VERDI IN JERUSALEM.

Riccardo Muti sees it this way: Verdi's ``Requiem,'' when performed against the backdrop of the stone walls of Jerusalem's Old City, becomes a prayer for peace.

``It asks for freedom of the soul, freedom of mankind,'' Muti said Thursday, shortly before an outdoor performance sponsored by the Jerusalem Foundation and the Italian Ravenna Festival.

The music director of La Scala opera company and former music director of the Philadelphia Orchestra said the text and music of the piece reached beyond the boundaries of Jews, Christians, Muslims and those of other world religions.

The performance was part of a program to bring a concert to a different city each year.

GET OFF MY BACK: Tattoo gives the wrong message; wearer sues

Jeremy Van Camp wants his old back back.

A tattoo artist commissioned to inscribe Van Camp's first name in Chinese on his back instead inked six Chinese characters whose meaning isn't even close, Van Camp says in a lawsuit.

`` `Kung po karate, martial arts expert, and Shaolin fifth.' That's what it says on my back,'' said Van Camp, 23, of Gretna, La. Shaolin is a form of kung fu.

According to the lawsuit filed this week, Van Camp saw a poster at Brad's Westbank Tattoo labeled as the Chinese alphabet. So he decided to have his name tattooed, and a tattoo artist inscribed the characters listed as J, E, R and so on, on the poster.

Trouble is, the English and Chinese languages are vastly different, and letters in English have no direct counterparts in Chinese.

Van Camp is demanding the tattoo company pay for laser surgery to remove the tattoo and to compensate him for his embarrassment and for the pain and suffering of tattoo removal.

Brad Fox, owner of Brad's Westbank Tattoo, did not return calls. An employee there said the character sheet was sold by a tattoo supply company in Voorheesville, N.Y.

Writer won't serve Washington Post

Word out of our nation's capital is that reclusive ``Silence of the Lambs'' author Thomas Harris recently declined to give The Washington Post an interview in connection with his latest book, ``Hannibal.''

The idea was to learn whether Harris, a gourmet, favors liver with fava beans and Chianti, and sauteed brains in black truffle sauce with white burgundy, as his cannibalistic title character does. So the paper sent reporter Joel Achenbach to Sag Harbor on New York's Long Island, where Harris lives, to investigate his eating habits. Achenbach interviewed Kurt Vonnegut Jr., Betty Friedan and playwright Lanford Wilson, who said, ``(Harris) is very funny. Enormously genial. A great cook. Though I've said, don't serve me kidneys and liver.'' Or brains.

`Dr. J' acknowledges tennis star, 18, is his daughter

Former basketball star Julius ``Dr. J'' Erving acknowledged Friday that Alexandra Stevenson, the overnight tennis sensation at Wimbledon, is his daughter from an extramarital affair.

It was a startling admission from one of Philadelphia's most beloved and charismatic athletes, a man also admired for his community involvement and his second career as a successful businessman and TV announcer.

``I acknowledge a relationship with her mother in 1980,'' he said in a statement he read to The Associated Press. ``My wife, who has known from the beginning, and children are aware of this situation.''

Erving added: ``All matters concerning Alexandra since her birth have been handled privately through counsel. I am pleased to see Alexandra, at 18, doing so well, and I applaud her mother's efforts and courage.''

The question came up on Wednesday when the Sun-Sentinel of Fort Lauderdale, Fla., published a copy of Stevenson's birth certificate, listing her father as Julius Winfield Erving II - Dr. J's formal name. In the accompanying story, Erving denied he was Stevenson's father.

Stevenson's mother, Samantha Stevenson, is a free-lance journalist who worked in Philadelphia when Erving starred there for the 76ers. She has stirred Wimbledon since the start of the tournament, with accusations of racism and lesbianism on the tour and a dispute over prize money.

She has refused to discuss the father of her 6-foot-1 daughter. Mother and daughter had no comment after Erving's statement.

``I just focus on my tennis and let everyone else deal with all that,'' Alexandra Stevenson said before Erving made his statement. ``I'm quite oblivious to most of it. I haven't been reading any newspapers, just playing tennis.''

On Friday, Stevenson became the first qualifier - a player who gets into the tournament by winning a preliminary competition - in Wimbledon history to reach the women's semifinals.

News Lite is compiled by Karen Duffy from Daily News staff and wire reports.

CAPTION(S):

3 Photos

PHOTO (1) HAPPY 4TH OF JULY

The Lexus that George Jones was driving when he had a near-fatal accident was displayed aloft by a Nashville radio station as a reminder to motorists about holiday drinking.

(2) ANOTHER LATIN LOVE

Latin Singer Enrique Iglesias sings to an excited Noelia Molitarno, 16, while performing in New York on ``Good Morning America'' Friday.

(3) Jeremy Van Camp and his tattoos.