Juliano Khamis: Martyr of Freedom and Culture

Juliano Khamis was born in Nazareth to a Palestinian father and a Jewish mother who had lived in Jenin for many years and supported the Palestinian opposition to the Israeli occupation. Juliano's mother Arna Mer Khamis established Elhajar Theatre in Jenin Refugee Camp in the Occupied West Bank with money awarded to her as winner of the Right Livelihood Award from the Swedish government--a prize considered to be a form of alternative Nobel Peace Prize. Juliano worked as a director in this theatre. After the death of Arna in 1994, the theatre continued its activities until it was ruined during the 2002 invasion by the Israeli occupation army. In 2003, Juliano returned to Jenin to see what had happened to the children who had acted in Arna's plays, and made the documentary "Arna's Children." In 2006, Juliano started the Freedom Theatre with his colleagues Jonatan Stancyk and Zakaria Zubeidi in a new location in Jenin Refugee Camp. Juliano had been an active defender of freedom on all levels, and this probably made him some enemies. On 4 April 2011, Juliano was killed at the entrance of his theatre, the Freedom Theatre, in Jenin Refugee Camp. The Freedom Theatre worked to create change on a national and international level concerning Palestine, and this tragic death has inspired many people to write about the legacy of Juliano and his mother. This article is the authors' attempt to put words on paper so that that legacy will not be forgotten. Here, they discuss the work of Juliano in an attempt to learn about the interaction of the people of Jenin with his activities and how that work affected their lives. It is a very simple account of what he tried to do on the cultural, social, and political levels for the Palestinian people. In this article, the authors use written accounts focused on the Freedom Theatre in Jenin and, in addition, they conducted interviews with people who were trained and later worked with Juliano to learn about their experience.