About

The West Bank Word is a collection of stories and experiences from Lubna Takruri, a San Franciscan-Palestinian journalist spending a few months getting re-acquainted with the West Bank in the occupied Palestinian territories.

I returned to Ramallah in October 2008 after spending the past five years working as a professional journalist for several news outlets all over the United States. Before that, I lived in Ramallah and studied at Birzeit University from 1998-2001. Throughout my time back in the US, my remorse that I had been young and lacking an observant journalists’ eyes during my first stay, joined with my swelling desire to move my career to Ramallah, where I felt my skills could be best used. Finally, following that dream and my heart, I returned to rediscover the West Bank and find a way to tell the stories I never hear living in the US.

This space is intended to become a glimpse of life in the West Bank and the voices of its residents. My hope is to create an outlet in which to tell of the people I meet, about their lives, their stories, their impressions of the US, and tales of my travels.

(check out the Flickr feed on the right, too — I’ll update it with photos of my travels even if I don’t blog about them.)

You can contact me at lubnatakruri (at) yahoo. I welcome feedback on the content, suggestions on how I can improve the blog, and requests to help journalists with any freelance work or tasks they need done here.