Arna’s Children by Juliano Mer Khamis

Arna’s Children tells the story of a theatre group that was established by Arna Mer Khamis. Arna comes from a Zionist family and in the 1950s married a Palestinian Arab, Saliba Khamis. On the West Bank, she opened an alternative education system for children whose regular life was disrupted by the Israeli occupation.

Juliano was born in Nazareth in 1958. He was the son of Saliba Khamis, a Palestinian citizen of Israel who was at one time the secretary of the Israeli Communist Party, and Arna Mer Khamis, a Jewish Israeli who spent her youth in the Palmach but became an anti-Zionist activist and a fearless fighter for peace, justice, and human rights. In interviews, Juliano would tell a story that marked the “racial lunacy” into which he was born: his mother went into labor while taking part in a protest against the imposition of martial law on Palestinian villages in Israel.