Interview with Aryeh Green

About the Author

Aryeh Green is a passionate lover of Israel – the people, the land, the country, and the idea. Residing in or around Jerusalem for the past three decades, Aryeh lives and breathes a vibrant and living Judaism, which affects all he does – including serving as Chief Strategy Officer of EnergiyaGlobal, a Jerusalem-based renewable energy platform for Africa; as Director Emeritus of MediaCentral, providing services for the foreign press in the region; formerly as a senior advisor to Israel’s deputy prime minister Natan Sharansky; as a backyard vintner; and as a writer, activist, husband and father.

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The Interview

1. What inspired the idea to write My Israel Trail?
I thought others might enjoy vicariously joining me on a walk through the Land of Milk & Honey. And more, I thought others might perhaps benefit from the personal growth I experienced on the hike, the lessons learned which helped me complete the trek and meet and overcome the personal challenges I was facing (recovering from my devastating divorce).

2. What did you as an author take away from writing My Israel Trail?
It was almost harder (certainly longer!) than the actual hike. The writing consolidated my thinking, and certainly reinforced, and planted even more deeply with my consciousness, the lessons I learned and wrote about. I find myself more patient, tolerant, optimistic and focused as a result of the writing (as well as the trek itself.)

3. What type of research did you to so you could write My Israel Trail?
Well… I walked the entire length of the Land of Israel – that’s sort of a ‘practical research’ aspect, no? Otherwise, I did look up sources for the quotes and historical references I made in the book (to assure accuracy). But it’s a memoir, so not really relevant imho….

What did your writing process for writing My Israel Trial look like?
Went through many phases. I tried to dedicate 8 hours a day for a few months; then 4 hours every morning as I completed and re-edited the work. I ‘borrowed’ a room in a neighbor friend’s home and disconnected from the Internet to reduce home/house-related distractions, and took a week’s writing retreat on the Golan at friends who own a B&B. And I periodically took long walks in the countryside to re-kindle the feeling of the trek and remind myself of the pace and feel of the hike.
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4. What is your current WIP? What can you tell us about this project?
The lessons I learned on the Trail and which helped me move on with my life are incredibly applicable to our conflict here in the Middle East. I had originally included these applications to develop a radically new approach to resolving the Arab-Israel conflict, but my publisher (rightly) suggested we leave this to another book. So… When My Israel Trail becomes a bestseller (!) I expect to publish a companion, or follow-on, applying the themes of the book to our situation. (I published an article along these lines a year ago – see here.)