Gal Shkedi​

 

Gal Shkedi, born in 1980 and a graduate of Shenkar, is an illustrator and animation director. Over the years, he has worked as an editorial illustrator for the newspapers Yedioth Ahronoth and Maariv, and as an animation director for commercials and productions both in Israel and internationally. The animated short series Death Corporation, which he directed (produced by Partizan for the advertising agency Ogilvy Germany), was a finalist at the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity and won a LIA Award in 2014, as well as first place for Character Design at the Ciclope Festival.
 

His graphic novella It All Stays There (2026), is based on the testimony of his grandfather, Holocaust survivor Meir Rubin. The book features Shkedi’s visual interpretation of Rubin’s memories and his story of survival. The book received enthusiastic reviews, which praised the dialogue between the direct, raw testimony and the minimalist, restrained visual style.
 

Shkedi has also illustrated three children's books: The Abba Tree by Devora Busheri, which was also published in English; the bestseller Noah Makes Peace with Nature, by Gil Kopatch; and A Little Tale About Jonah and the Whale, also by Kopatch. Additionally, he designed the covers for the renewed edition of Ephraim Kishon’s books published by Yedioth Books, as well as the cover and illustrations for The Kishon Book, and created and illustrated the brand language for the kids’ line of Castro, one of Israel’s leading fashion houses. Shkedi lives in Rinatia with his wife and their three children.
 

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It All Stays There

Graphic Novella

 

Publisher: Pardes

Year: 2026

169 pp.

 

Translation rights: World  
Audio visual rights: World

Translations: English translation by Joanna Chen; English language dummy available

 

This is a collaborative work created by a grandson and his grandfather. The grandfather told the story, and the grandson illustrated it.
The Grandfather, Meir Rubin (1913–2003), was a young Polish Jewish man when World War II broke out. Life as he knew it collapsed in an instant, and he endured suffering in the ghetto, in forced labor, and in Auschwitz. The atrocities he witnessed—the violence inflicted by human beings upon fellow human beings—he described in clear, exposed language, devoid of pathos. He bore witness out of a compelling need to remember.

 

The Grandson, Gal Shkedi is a young Israeli man raising three children during a time of war. Driven by a deep-rooted commitment to his beloved grandfather’s legacy, he chose to engage in a dialogue with his grandfather Meir through visual means. He illustrated his grandfather's testimony so that we would not look away, even from a reality that is no longer accessible to us—to allow himself, and us alongside him, to encounter not only what is already known, but also what will always remain unknown.

 

This graphic novella enables a meeting between generations and mediums. Both the insightful illustrations, created out of an intimate acquaintance with the grandfather’s wounds, and the testimony, delivered in the language of truth, create an encounter with the unheard cry. Perhaps this is the only way to speak of the Holocaust: through a close dialogue, along complementary paths, and with an awareness of intergenerational trauma.

 

It All Stays There seeks to take another step in the journey of understanding what happened then. It belongs not only to the past but touches upon the present as well. The book joins the evolving cultural memory of the Holocaust—a memory that shifts and grows as the reality around us changes.

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Critical Praise

Gal Shkedi created this graphic novel based on the testimony of his grandfather, an Auschwitz survivor, which was translated from Yiddish to Hebrew, and illustrated it… these illustrations—silent and muted—wrap the story in a cry…  they allow members of the second and third generations to approach the past through a text interwoven with illustrated silence, in order to tell stories that the mind struggles to grasp and words cannot describe.

Nirit Anderman, literary critic, Ha'aretz

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… Gal Shkedi – Rubin’s grandson – has transformed the testimony into a gripping new Hebrew-language graphic novel It All Stays There… Shkedi, a talented animation director and character designer based in Tel Aviv, illustrated each image that not only accompany his grandfather’s words, but breathe a new life into a testimony that, like so many others, could’ve faded into oblivion… (the illustrations) are both thoughtful and inventive.
Unlike “Maus,” the groundbreaking graphic novel by American cartoonist Art Spiegelman, in this survivor’s tale it’s the Nazis that are sometimes depicted as rats, running amok hunting Jews.
By offering his own visual interpretations, Shkedi makes his grandfather’s memories not only more vivid, but more accessible. His art, possibly because it is so clean and simple, leaves enough room for the reader’s own contemplation.

Avshalom Halutz, Ha'aretz, English Edition​

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