We were shocked and saddened at MEF to learn that Israeli-Arab actor and political activist Juliano Mer-Khamis was shot and killed on April 4th outside the theater he founded in a refugee camp in the West Bank city of Jenin. When I was introduced to Juliano Mer-Khamis in 2006, I recognized straight away that he was someone who shared the values that animate our work at MEF. His belief that Israel’s illegal and brutal military occupation of the West Bank and Gaza not only robbed Palestinians of land, but also had a corrosive effect on their culture and collective imagination, was the basis for his creation of the Freedom Theater in Jenin. Refusing false binaries — he once said “I am 100% Palestinian and 100% Jewish” — Juliano’s work as an activist and artist envisioned a form of progressive global citizenship driven by universal values of love and democracy, and issued a bold and courageous challenge to the narrow strictures of religious and national identity. He was a cultural warrior on the front lines of the struggle for peace and freedom, and we mourn his tragic and senseless death.

WATCH: A clip from Arna’s Children, a film by Juliano Mer-Khamis distributed by MEF

WATCH: No Child is Born a Terrorist, a short film about Juliano Mer-Khamis’ Jenin Freedom Theatre by Charles Annenberg Weingarten and the explore.org team