ncr (numeric character reference) to unicode

[B. T. Raven]

Does any of you know whether nxhtml has the capability to convert 
sequences like this:

שַׁלוֹם.
(shalom in Hebrew)

to the equivalent Unicode string. N. Walsh had a couple of .el files 
that implemented this I think, but they required cl to be loaded also.
Will Emacs 23.1 also support bidi when it is released?

Thanks,

Ed