Hebrew in idle ans eclipse (Windows)

[iu2]

Hi all,

I'll realy appreciate your help in this:

I read data from a database containg Hebrew words.
When the application is run from IDLE a word looks like this, for
example:
\xe8\xe9\xe5

But when I run the same application from eclipse or the Windows shell
I get the 'e's replaced with '8's:
\x88\x89\x85

The IDLE way is the way I need, since using Hebrew words in the
program text itself,  as keys in a dict, for example, yield similar
strings (with 'e's). When running from eclipse I get KeyError for this
dict..

What do I need to do run my app like IDLE does?

Thanks
iu2