I wrote this little SSCCE to read your file. It seems to be reading it
correctly under Win2K with JDK 1.5.0_06.

import java.io.FileInputStream;
import java.io.IOException;
import java.util.Properties;

public class Hebrew
  {
  /**
   * test harness
   *
   * @param args not used
   */
  public static void main ( String[] args )
     {

     // get an ordinary property
     Properties props = new Properties();
     try
        {
        FileInputStream fis = new FileInputStream(
"hebrew.properties" );
        props.load( fis );
        fis.close();
        }
     catch ( IOException e )
        {
        return;
        }
     String desc = props.getProperty( "welcome.heading" );
     System.out.println( desc );
     System.out.println( displayHexString( desc ) );

     }

  /** convert a String to a hex representation of the String,
 * with 4 hex chars per char of the original String.
 * e.g. "1abc \uabcd" gives "0031_0061_0062_0063_0020_abcd"
 * @param s String to convert to hex equivalent
 */
  public static String displayHexString ( String s )
     {
     StringBuilder sb = new StringBuilder( s.length() * 5 - 1 );
     for ( int i=0; i<s.length(); i++ )
        {
        char c = s.charAt(i);
        if ( i != 0 )
           {
           sb.append( '_' );
           }
        // encode 16 bits as four nibbles

        sb.append( hexChar [ c >>> 12 & 0xf ] );
        sb.append( hexChar [ c >>> 8 & 0xf ] );
        sb.append( hexChar [ c >>> 4 & 0xf ] );
        sb.append( hexChar [ c & 0xf ] );
        }
     return sb.toString();
     }

  // table to convert a nibble to a hex char.
  static final char[] hexChar = {
     '0' , '1' , '2' , '3' ,
     '4' , '5' , '6' , '7' ,
     '8' , '9' , 'a' , 'b' ,
     'c' , 'd' , 'e' , 'f'};
  }