{"id":714170,"date":"2026-01-23T00:29:27","date_gmt":"2026-01-23T00:29:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/714170\/"},"modified":"2026-01-23T00:29:27","modified_gmt":"2026-01-23T00:29:27","slug":"watch-yallah-tawlah-honouring-palestinian-culture-in-london","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/714170\/","title":{"rendered":"WATCH: Yallah Tawlah: Honouring Palestinian culture in London"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Backgammon has been played in and around London for centuries, having been delivered to us through trade from its <a href=\"https:\/\/alexandrallewellyn.com\/about\/the-history-of-backgammon\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">birthplace in Mesopotamia, modern-day Iraq<\/a>. <\/p>\n<p>Many will know the game by its English language title, but few know it as such a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.swlondoner.co.uk\/tag\/culture\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">cultural<\/a> highlight for countries in the MENA region.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>In Arabic, the game goes by the name of Tawlah (\u0637\u0627\u0648\u0644\u0629) or table, and there are few locations in England where you can play the popular game under that name.<\/p>\n<p>But a new Holborn site has recently introduced Tawlah Tuesdays, where you can learn the Turkish, Palestinian, or even street style variations, drinking a cup of sweet shay (\u0634\u0627\u064a) to the sound of Umm Kulthum.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The founder of Yallah Tawlah, Samir Herzallah has now hosted his Tuesday night sessions at <a href=\"https:\/\/www.swlondoner.co.uk\/tag\/palestine\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Palestine<\/a> House for over six months. <\/p>\n<p>The host says the halal (no gambling) event is an opportunity for him to spread awareness and show solidarity for Palestine in his own way. <\/p>\n<p>But, ultimately, he said: \u201cIt\u2019s nice to share a part of the culture that is about enjoying, relaxing, living, and is just something that we do.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Listen to my interview with Samir in the video below.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<p>Featured image credit: Lulu Goad<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Backgammon has been played in and around London for centuries, having been delivered to us through trade from&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":714171,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7757],"tags":[213720,748,2766,393,77,271,4884,28959,257,20277,1814,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-714170","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-london","8":"tag-backgammon","9":"tag-britain","10":"tag-culture","11":"tag-england","12":"tag-entertainment","13":"tag-games","14":"tag-great-britain","15":"tag-holborn","16":"tag-london","17":"tag-mena","18":"tag-palestine","19":"tag-uk","20":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115941590079773413","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/714170","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=714170"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/714170\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/714171"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=714170"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=714170"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=714170"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}