Wim Westerveld

Oded Korach’s MA project addresses the sensitive topic of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict through the lens of religion. Intrigued by the common Israeli claim that this political conflict is actually a religious one, Korach wanted to examine the social ethics outlined in the primary texts of Islam and Judaism and determine the actual differences between the two. He began his project by collecting the social rules described in the Torah and Quran, then published a comparison of these on a website as well as in booklets and posters. He led four workshops to explore this comparison further and address people’s reactions to his work. Korach interviewed various different people on this topic, facilitated a meeting between a rabbi and a religious leader in the Muslim community, filmed a documentary on his workshops, and pared down all the collected footage into a 33-minute report. He drew on his communication design skills as well as his natural sense of curiosity in an attempt to open up a new dialog on fraught and contentious ground. Watch the video here.