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Death of an Actor

Remembering the heroic life of Juliano Mer-Khamis

by
Marc Tracy
April 05, 2011
Mer-Khamis at the Freedom Theatre in 2007.(Saif Dahlah/AFP/Getty Images)
Mer-Khamis at the Freedom Theatre in 2007.(Saif Dahlah/AFP/Getty Images)

You should drop everything and read Liel Leibovitz’s thoughtful, sad appreciation of Juliano Mer-Khamis, who was gunned down yesterday in Jenin, in the West Bank. Half-Israeli, half-Palestinian, he devoted his life to trying to bridge the two communities of which he was members. And now he is dead, and the twins with which his wife is pregnant will never know their father.

Tablet Magazine contributor Avi Issacharoff reports that Palestinian police have arrested a man who was in the al-Aqsa Martyr Brigades and previously spent time in Israeli prison. Mer-Khamis will be buried at a kibbutz in northern Israel.

Praise for the man and his life (and his talent) has poured in, including from prominent Israeli filmmaker Amos Gitai and from columnist Gideon Levy.

As for Mer-Khamis’s theater company? Well, the show must go on.

Marc Tracy is a staff writer at The New Republic, and was previously a staff writer at Tablet. He tweets @marcatracy.