Juliano Mer-Khamis
Juliano Mer-Khamis | |
---|---|
Born | Juliano Khamis 29 May 1958 Nazareth, Israel |
Died | 4 April 2011 | (aged 52)
Cause of death | Assassination |
Resting place | Kibbutz Ramot Menashe, Israel[1] |
Occupation(s) | Actor, director, activist |
Years active | 1984–2011 |
Spouse(s) | Jenny Nyman (?–2011; his death; 3 children) |
Juliano Mer-Khamis (
Biography
Juliano Khamis (later Mer-Khamis) was born in
Mer-Khamis' first marriage was to Mishmesh Uri, with whom he had a daughter.[8][9] At the time of his death, Mer-Khamis was married to Jenny Nyman, a Finnish woman who did administrative and fundraising work for the Jenin theater. They had three sons. Khamis saw the birth of one son, but was killed while his wife was pregnant with their twins. She gave birth to the twins a month after his death, and moved to Haifa to raise them.[10]
Service in the IDF
Mer-Khamis served in the
According to one version, at one point he refused to obey his commanding officer's order to frisk an elderly man, punching the former instead, and spent several months in prison. His release was won by the direct intervention of Isser Harel, who was his mother's cousin.[4] According to another version, published by the New York Times, at a checkpoint where he was assigned to search Arabs' cars near the West Bank city of Jenin, Mer recognized a car passing from Nazareth as belonging to his father's relatives. This recognition triggered an act of defiance where he discarded his weapon and decided to abandon his post, declaring his intent to go home. This act of desertion led to a year of repeated incarcerations and time spent in psychiatric institutions.[13]
Theatre interest, travel and return
On his release from the stockade, he enrolled in acting school, and discovered his abilities in that field. He made an appearance in The Little Drummer Girl, a film which deals with Palestinian terrorism.[14] In 1987 he spent a year in the Philippines, consuming hallucinogenic mushrooms and talking to monkeys.[citation needed] It was there that he felt, according to a later declaration, that he had shaken off all identities. On his return, he lived as a beachcomber in Tel Aviv. He protested against Israel's response to the First Intifada by stripping himself and walking about covered in fake blood. Mishmish Or, an Israeli Jew of Turkish paternal and Egyptian maternal descent, picked him up off the sidewalks and gave him shelter. The two would eventually have a daughter together, Milay. In the meantime his mother Arna set up a children's center to teach over 1500 children in the Jenin camp and asked her son to join her there to teach drama therapy.[4]
When the
Outside of the theater he devoted himself to allaying everyday problems: driving pregnant women to Israeli hospitals, or Jenin's children to Haifa's beaches, or providing medicines and food.[4]
In a 2009 interview with
Mer-Khamis was married to Jenny Nyman, a Finnish activist he met in Haifa in May 2006. They had a son, Jay, and were expecting the birth of twins at the time of his death.[16]
The theater he founded thrives, under the general management of Swedish-Israeli Jonathan Stanczyk, with actor Nabil al-Raee as artistic director.[4]
Film and acting career
Mer-Khamis's first film,
In 2002, Mer-Khamis was nominated for the Ophir Award for Best Actor for his role in Kedma.[7] One of the last films in which he appeared was the Palestinian film Salt of this Sea (2008), which was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film.
He performed on stage with Beit Lessin Theater and Habima Theatre. In 2003, he produced and directed his first documentary film, Arna's Children, together with Danniel Danniel. The film is about his mother's work to establish a children's theatre group in Jenin during the 1980s.
In 2011 he joined the faculty of the Academy of Performing Arts, Tel Aviv, where he taught acting until his assassination.
In 2006, following a wave of international support which was followed by his film, Mer-Khamis opened a community theater for children and adults in Jenin, called The Freedom Theatre.
The Freedom Theatre
In 2006, Mer-Khamis established
Assassination
Mer-Khamis was shot by masked gunmen while leaving the theater he had founded in Jenin. He had just started to drive away in his Citroën, with his baby son Jay on his lap, when a masked gunman emerged from a nearby alley and asked him to stop. The babysitter with them advised him to drive on, but he stopped, and was shot five times.[4] He was rushed to the Jenin Hospital, where he was pronounced dead after his arrival.[7] Palestinian National Authority Prime Minister Salam Fayyad condemned the killing, saying that "We cannot stand silent in the face of this ugly crime, it constitutes a grave violation that goes beyond all principles and human values and it contravenes with the customs and ethics of co-existence."[19]
In an interview in 2008, Mer-Khamis had foreseen the circumstances of his murder, predicting jokingly that he would be killed by a "fucked-up Palestinian" for "corrupting the youth of Islam".
Filmography
Year | Film | Role | Notes |
---|---|---|---|
1984 | The Little Drummer Girl | Julio | |
1985 | Not Quite Paradise | Hassan (terrorist) | |
1985 | Za'am V'Tehilah | Edy, aka "the butcher" | |
1985 | 51 Bar | Thomas | |
1986 | Esther | Haman |
|
1987 | Wedding in Galilee (Urs al-Jalil) | Officer | |
1989 | Berlin-Yerushalaim |
Menahme | |
1993 | Sipurei Tel-Aviv (Tel Aviv Stories) | Jeno | |
1993 | Zohar | Morris | |
1993 | Deadly Heroes | Ramon | |
1994 | Nothing to Lose | Antonio Valdez | |
1994 | Under the Domim Tree (Etz Hadomim Tafus) | Ariel | |
1994 | Yom Yom | Jules | |
1995 | Night Terrors | Mahmoud (as Juliano Mer) | |
1997 | Overture 1812 | ||
2000 | The Last Patrol | Jesus Carrero | |
2000 | Kippur | The Captain | |
2002 | Kedma | Moussa | |
2003 | Arna's Children | Himself | Won FIPRESCI Prize
|
2004 | God's Sandbox (Tahara) | Nagim | Nominated for Best Actor |
2008 | Salt of this Sea | Hiking leader | Palestinian submission for Oscar in "Best Foreign Language Film" category |
2009 | Hadutha Saghira | Israeli soldier | |
2010 | Miral | Shaikh Saabah |
Television and video
Year | Title | Role | Notes |
---|---|---|---|
1995 | Hostages | Ali | Series |
1992 | Sweating Bullets |
Melito | Series – played in "Don't Say Nothing Bad About My Baby" episode |
1995 | The Revolutionary | Centurion | Video |
1996 | The Revolutionary II | Centurion | Video |
1998 | Florentine | Remi | Series |
2001 | 1000 Calories | Eitan Katz | TV movie |
2006 | Dijihad! | Omar | TV movie |
References
- Ynetnews. 6 April 2011. Retrieved 6 April 2011.
Arab-Israeli actor Juliano Mer-Khamis, who was murdered in Jenin on Tuesday is being laid to rest at the kibbutz Ramot Menashe cemetery, where he will be buried next to his mother Arna. Israeli and Arab actors acco[m]panied him on his final journey.
- ^ "השחקן והיוצר ג'וליאנו מר נרצח ביריות בג'נין" [Actor and creator Juliano Mer was shot in Jenin] (in Hebrew). Ynet. 20 June 1995. Retrieved 2 August 2011.
- ^ Jack Khoury; Avi Issacharoff; Anshel Pfeffer (4 April 2011). "Israeli Actor Juliano Mer-Khamis Shot Dead in Jenin". Haaretz.
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Adam Schatz, "The Life and Death of Juliano Mer-Khamis", at London Review of Books, vol. 35, No. 22, 21 November 2013 pp. 3–11.
- ^ a b c d David K. Shipler, Arab and Jew: Wounded Spirits in a Promised Land, (Times Books, 1986) Crown/Archetype, 2014 pp. 635–638.
- Ynetnews. Retrieved 7 April 2011.
Many of the jolts and tribulations experienced by the three brothers stem from their childhood as the sons of an Arab intellectual father Saliba Khamis and a Jewish mother, Arna Mer, a relentless idealist who joined Maki (the Israeli Communist Party).
- ^ a b c Oren Kessler; Khaled Abu Toameh (4 April 2011). "Actor Juliano Mer-Khamis gunned down in Jenin". The Jerusalem Post. Retrieved 2 August 2011.
- ^ "מלחמת הנשים של השחקן ג'וליאנו מר". www.makorrishon.co.il. Retrieved 11 February 2021.
- ^ "5 יריות בלבו של החופש: ראיון עם בת זוגו של ג'וליאנו מר". הארץ (in Hebrew). Retrieved 11 February 2021.
- ^ "Stuck in Emergency Mode". Haaretz.
- ^ "Weddings on the Front Line". Maclean's. Archived from the original on 10 April 2011.
- ^ Adas, Jane. "An Evening of Solidarity With Dr. Azmi Bishara" Washington Report on Middle East Affairs. August 2007
- ProQuest 122510360.
- ^ Terry Gould, Worth Dying For: Canada's Mission to Train Police in the World's Failing States, Random House of Canada, 2014 p. 207.
- ^ Dahlah, Saif. "Jewish-Arab director shot dead in northern West Bank". Agence France-Presse. Archived from the original on 8 April 2011. Retrieved 4 April 2011.[date missing]
- Ynetnews. 20 June 1995. Retrieved 2 August 2011.
- ^ Anderman, Nirit (16 February 2011). "Mideast can't bear bridge-building figures like Juliano Mer-Khamis". Haaretz. Israel. Retrieved 2 August 2011.
- ^ The Economist, "Juliano Mer-Khamis", 16 April 2011, p. 92
- ^ "Israeli-Arab actor shot dead in West Bank". Al Jazeera. 4 April 2011. Retrieved 2 August 2011.
- ^ "Jenin militant charged over theatre director murder". Jenin: Yahoo! News. Agence France-Presse. 6 April 2011. Archived from the original on 14 April 2011. Retrieved 7 April 2011.
- ^ "Killer of Israeli-Palestinian Director Still at Large". International Middle East Media Center. 19 April 2011. Accessed 27 December 2011.
External links
- Juliano Mer-Khamis at IMDb
- The Murder of an Actor/Activist Archived 13 April 2011 at the Life magazine