How to get a cell phone in the US that can read foreign-language text messages?

I want to buy a GSM phone that will allow me to read, and hopefully also write, Hebrew text messages in my visits to Israel.

Sounds simple, right? My tri-band Motorola C650 works fine voice-wise, but Hebrew characters show up as black bars. I also called Nokia, and after some information-digging was told that no Nokia phones sold in the US support anything besides English and Spanish.

SMS is always universal Unicode, and phone manufacturers are global, so this situation seems rather stupid. Is there any other choice other than purchase the phone in Israel? Affordable phones that do come with real Unicode support? Firmware flashing? Other ideas?

All Nokia phones can do that