• Comics project aims to bridge gap between secular, religious

Three thousand elementary school pupils from state and state-religious schools participated in the project this year, and last month sent in their strips to a nationwide contest. On Monday, the 50 finalists will split into mixed religious-secular teams to create new strips. Judges will choose the best three strips and will award prizes to the winners and their schools.The joint initiative between Tzav Pius - an NGO that encourages dialogue programs, founded after the assassination of former prime minister Yitzhak Rabin - and the Center for Educational Technology (CET) encourages the acquisition of dialogue tools and finding ways to interact with and understand those who are different. The project, entitled "Getting Out of the Bubble, Talking through Comics," was built around a new Web site where students could build the comics themselves.