yalla- a youth response to the israeli palestinian conflict

YALLA
A Youth Response to the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict

After a successful first two issues, Yalla is back for another year. If you are a young person – aged thirty and under – we want your short stories, poems, photographs, personal narratives, visual art, music, and short essays about the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.

Yalla is an anthology of the thoughts and ideas of Arab and Jewish youth collected with the intention of creating dialogue, opening up the much-needed lines of communication in our communities. These pieces show that political opinions are not black and white, but stem from personal experiences. We are looking for expressions of feelings about the conflict, to help us better understand each other. The personal expressions in Yalla show that the conflict contains diverse experiences and opinions. We seek submissions from mainly young Arabs and Jews, but all are welcome to contribute.

So what is Yalla looking for? You can tell us about what the role of the Diaspora communities could be in bringing peace. What is the best way to build trust in the Middle East? How is your identity influenced by the land or conflict? Have you been in love with someone from the "other side"? What does otherness mean in the context of this conflict? Thoughts, feelings, reflections; these are just a few suggestions. The only limit is your imagination.

The submissions will be reviewed by a balanced and diverse editorial board made up of both Arab and Jewish youth. The editors will be in touch with you regarding your submissions. The deadline for submissions is November 30th, 2007. Longer pieces should run to a maximum of 2,500 words. Send contributions and questions to yallajournal [at] gmail.com. Please include your contact information and a brief biography. Anonymous submissions may be printed by request. Please distribute this message as widely as possible so that this edition will be even better than the first two.

Attention: Yalla is currently recruiting committed student organizers to help us set up chapters of Yalla throughout N. america. If you are interested in this initiative and would like to get involved: please contact the Communications Directors, Erik erikyingling [at] gmail.com
or Sum ayya sumayyaayoub [at] hotmail.com