Contributor Guidelines
Contributors’ guidelines and style guides tend to be long-winded and boring. This one tries to be a little bit more straightforward.
Whether you’ve been invited to contribute a blog here or have pitched one yourself, these guidelines are designed to set down consistent standards for the website’s tone and content.
After Aliyah is — first and foremost — all about providing olim with valuable information about how to make Israel work for them.
In this respect we’re a very broad … shul. Think of something that you’re average oleh who’s new here might be stumped by or even curious about:
- How do I know if an ATM can withdrawal dollars or just shekels?
- What’s the bus from Jerusalem to the airport and where does it leave from?
Information also preferably needs to be valuable which likely means that it hasn’t been written about a thousand times before. Use the search function in the sidebar to see what has already been covered or run a site search on Google as follows:
If a subject has been covered before that doesn’t mean that it’s automatically out. Just that it would be better if you could add a unique spin or angle on it.
What’s Not Of Interest
AfterAliyah aims to be an informational resource for olim that isn’t underpinned by any ideological motives — such as attracting aliyah. It’s a raw and gritty narrative of life here written by olim actually living here as told through their written contributions, blogs, and guides, some of which may be tinged with subjectivity.
This isn’t a platform for venting about life in Israel and airing your grievances — although if there’s an issue you’d like to draw attention to you’re welcome to do so tactfully. Equally, we don’t want adherents to feel pressured into feeling the need to saying that everything is great here. We want to share perspectives and ideas that can help English-speaking olim (possibly later other olim) better navigate life in Israel.
The following are generally speaking bad fits:
- Anything pre-aliyah. This site’s focus is post-aliyah (olim already in Israel). Example: Why you need to come to Israel now!
- Political pieces. This one’s a bit touchy. We’re definitely not looking for hasbara style pieces / why Israel was right (or wrong). At the same time, discussing domestic politics is fine because it touches upon the lives of everybody that lives here. Discretion may be exercised in this particular respect.
- Perspectives on life in Israel are fine. But general musings about things that are of Jewish interest probably have a better home. This site’s guiding mission is to be a pragmatic resource.
Style Guide
Word count for submissions is somewhat flexible. There tend to be two main pieces here:
- Blogs are generally 1,500 words or shorter.
- More extended guides and feature pieces are often closer to the 2,000 word territory.
- This site typically uses American English, that being the adopted convention in Israel.
Mechanics
For technical reasons, we’re not currently providing contributors with access to the CMS.
All images should be either licensed for reproduction or be the original work of the author.
All images should be captioned.
Email is the best means through which to submit work: submissions at after aliyah.