Yoram Gal

Yoram Gal (born 7 January 1952) is an international Israeli painter, playwright, director, actor and theater, TV and cinema producer. His first play was EVERYMAN (1978). He has been an actor and director and a painter in the United States, China and more, with collectors of his works in Canada, Australia, Europe and Israel. Yoram Gal was born in Jerusalem, son of Ephraim Roytenberg - Fima - a Jewish painter born in Harbin, China, and emigrated to Israel in 1949, and Naomi Margalit, born in Jerusalem, a teacher and economist. His parents divorced when Gal was a year old. When he was six, his mother married Yossef Gal, an economist, and the three moved to the center of Jerusalem. Three years later, his sister Aya, psychologist, was born, and when he was 11 the family moved to London, UK, where Yossef Gal represented the state of Israel as the economic attache's in the embassy. Gal began painting at age 12 when he underwent psychotherapy at the Anna Freud Clinic in London. In painting, he found catharsis for his soul's storms, and at age 15 he passed the A' Level exams in Art, which enabled him to enter Art College. His teacher Mr. Rhymer advised against it, and told him simply to paint and observe and self study works of masters like Van Gogh and Botticelli. He excelled in Maths and Physics and graduated from JFS - the Jewish high school, at age 17, returned to Israel and joined the IDF Nahal unit, ending his three-year service as a lieutenant. In Jerusalem, he worked in a photo store and exhibited his first one-man show in Beit Mori. The leading Israeli newspaper Yediot Ahronot published a favorable critique of the show, written by the renowned critic Miriam Tal.In 1996 he married Nili Dotan, playwright and screenwriter, and in 2000 their son Nimrod was born. In 1999 Nili produced the film "Wild" which Gal wrote and directed. "Wild" received enthusiastic critiques in the Israeli newspaper, was invited to ten international film festivals and received "Best Feature Film" award in the alternative independent film festival in Picciano, Italy, 2001.Gal and Dotan got into debt, even though the film was distributed by the big "Golan-Globus Films" Theatres chain. Only at the end of 2002, when his paintings landed in the US, the turn around occurred. The journey of coming free of debt while moving from theater and cinema to painting only, and the falling in love with America which brought him money, glory and satisfaction, he recorded in a semi autobiographical, illustrated novel which he published on Amazon.com as an E Book in 2009: "The Secret of America".