Rasha Elass
Editorial Director
Rasha Elass is editorial director at New Lines. She is an investigative journalist, war correspondent, playwright and memoirist. Rasha grew up in Europe and the Middle East, where she also spent over a decade reporting on various stories. She currently resides in Washington, D.C. She was one of the founding editors of New Lines.
Latest from Rasha Elass
The Painful Burden of Bearing Witness
A weekly review of news, essays, podcast and more from New Lines. The week of April 25 to April 29, 2022.
The Day My Wartime Cat Went Missing
There is a local proverb that asks God for shelter from calamity, when all is lost in a blink of an eye, suddenly and irreversibly, during “saet al ghafleh” — the hour of oblivion — as you go about your day unaware of fate sneaking up on you from behind: a solemn figure that appears at your doorstep, a phone call that comes in the night, a beloved cat that goes missing.
In Lucifer, We Find Sympathy for the Devil
Ultimately, all the devil and his top demon want is to make a meaningful human connection. They feel tormented at the possibility that they may be incapable of such a thing after having spent eons in hell. And who could blame them?
A Multigenerational American Story of Immigration and Return
Kamel had raised the American flag on his rooftop in the hope that the French would not aim their guns in his direction. But the French attacks were more wanton and severe. A shell raged toward his house, piercing one of its walls.
As Brood X Nears the Completion of its Life Cycle, We Are Left Listening to the Cicada Blues
Much has been written about the din of cicadas, compared at times in its strangeness to the imagined sound of UFOs. Bob Dylan was moved to write “Day of the Locusts” when he heard them in 1970 at Princeton as he was receiving his honorary degree.
Arab Life on Mars
Islam’s Golden Age boasted poetry and scientific inquiry and, perhaps as relevant to the occasion, the seeds of science fiction, a literary genre that has the potential to engage the youth of the Arab and Muslim worlds and empower them to imagine the future they want for themselves and their countries.
Between Insurrection and Revolution
Years later, after leaving the country and then returning as a journalist, I would ask fellow Syrians what they understood themselves to be. “What is Syria? Who is Syria?” I asked anyone who listened. “What does it mean to be a citizen of Syria?”
The Boy on the Bicycle
After the Syrian regime attacked a rebel-controlled part of Damascus with sarin gas in August 2013, I smuggled my way in to report on life in the besieged area