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Rasha Elass

Rasha Elass

Editorial Director

Rasha Elass is Editorial Director at New Lines magazine and a member of the magazine’s launch team. A memoirist and former war correspondent, Rasha reported from the Middle East for over a decade in peacetime and in war. From 2012 to 2014, she was the only member of the international media reporting from the ground inside both the rebel-controlled areas of Syria and Damascus, where she was based undercover.

Her work has appeared in Reuters, LA Times, NPR and Forbes among others.

She has also covered business, finance, and data-driven investigative stories in the United States and globally for various media, in addition to writing religion and culture focused essays.

Rasha is the recipient of the Logan Nonfiction Fellowship and the MacDowell Art of Journalism Fellowship. Her recent first-person essay titled The Day My Wartime Cat Went Missing was longlisted for the One World Media Popular Features Award in 2022.

She holds a master’s degree from Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism. She currently lives in Washington, D.C., always in pursuit of that elusive spare time to write plays and travel. Stories of particular interest to Rasha include narrative non-fiction, unflinching first-person pieces and anything that captures how social and cultural trends in the U.S. influence the world and vice versa.

Latest from Rasha Elass

In Postwar Sarajevo, the Similarities With Middle East Turmoil Resonate

In Postwar Sarajevo, the Similarities With Middle East Turmoil Resonate

During a recent trip abroad, I visited Bosnia-Herzegovina, curious to see how a European country that broke up and later survived a sectarian war might look three decades on. I’ve had this curiosity about the aftermath of war and carnage ever since I could remember, mainly because, like so many of my generation in the Middle East and, unfortunately, so many more of the younger generations there, I grew up bearing witness to war, wondering how a nation might one day overcome its own mistakes and misfortune — or not.

Rasha Elass
An Eyewitness to the Burning Man Catastrophe That Wasn’t

An Eyewitness to the Burning Man Catastrophe That Wasn’t

This year and last have brought some of the more aberrant weather patterns for Burning Man, which cannot escape the extreme weather of climate change. But depictions of a humanitarian disaster complete with ridiculous rumors on social media of an Ebola outbreak made me think of other disasters, like war and the falsehoods they beckon.

Rasha Elass
A Low-Budget Sci-Fi Film Shatters Iran’s Sacred Red Lines

A Low-Budget Sci-Fi Film Shatters Iran’s Sacred Red Lines

Divided into five segments, each unfolding in a different era in the future under a new supreme leader, the low-budget, sci-fi art film shows a progression in the timeline but not so much in reform.

Rasha Elass,
Kelly Golnoush Niknejad
How Gun, Prayer and Abortion Decisions Harm Us Over the Long Term

How Gun, Prayer and Abortion Decisions Harm Us Over the Long Term

In our story, the shooter we focus on has no gun permit and no mandatory training in how to handle a firearm or appropriately assess a threat. He fatally shot his victim, then called 911 and claimed self-defense, citing a gun that did not exist.

Rasha Elass
How ‘Stand Your Ground’ Erodes a Homicide Probe

How ‘Stand Your Ground’ Erodes a Homicide Probe

A suspect shot and killed an unarmed man in a vehicle outside his house, then claimed it was self-defense. At the heart of this case is the expansion of “Stand Your Ground” laws, which expanded self-defense to public spaces, thus removing the traditional “duty to de-escalate” a conflict.

Robin Blackburn,
Rasha Elass
The Painful Burden of Bearing Witness

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.

Rasha Elass
The Day My Wartime Cat Went Missing

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.

Rasha Elass
In Lucifer, We Find Sympathy for the Devil

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?

Rasha Elass
A Multigenerational American Story of Immigration and Return

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.

Rasha Elass
As Brood X Nears the Completion of its Life Cycle, We Are Left Listening to the Cicada Blues

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.

Rasha Elass
Arab Life on Mars

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.

Rasha Elass
Between Insurrection and Revolution

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?”

Rasha Elass
The Boy on the Bicycle

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

Rasha Elass