“I sent him some souvenirs,” Henig said, nodding to Shalit.

“Three thousand dollars,” said Shalit, who does not speak much English but knows numbers like that.

“I invited him over to dinner, and we watched a game, to see if we have chemistry,” Henig said. “I was very impressed with his knowledge of sports. He knew about things that happened while he was in jail. He knows the players better than I do.

“I took him out to dinner so he would gain weight. He gained eight kilos; the big problem is that I gained 12 kilos.” (Those figures translate to 17.5 pounds and 26.5 pounds.)

Asked about their work, Henig said: “It’s like teacher-student, but soon he will be my teacher. It’s like Ping-Pong.”

What the budding collaboration is really like, or where it will go, I cannot say. Shalit did not appear to have designs on being a journalist when, just out of high school, he began his obligatory term in the Israeli military. Now suddenly he gets to see LeBron James of Miami and Iker Casillas of Spain in the same month. He does have his own perspective on life: the lessons of sport — perseverance, optimism, courage — can serve somebody dragged across the border into a cellar for five years.

As a nascent journalist himself, Shalit has been pursued by everybody (including me) who wants an in-depth interview, if not about his captivity and his worldview, then at least about his personal thoughts during his captivity, his family, his aspirations. He has remained mostly silent in the face of the usual conflict between the public’s professed contempt for the news media and the public’s addiction to what the news media provide.

When the newspaper announced that the celebrated former hostage was suddenly a sports columnist, some Israelis grumbled that he was being used, or at least had not paid his dues. However, the publication Maariv recently offered an essay called “The Grace Period Is Over,” by Lilach Sigan, on its Web site.