Shay Rabineau Libri

The extensive hiking trail system in Israel, spanning over ten thousand kilometers, serves as a vital aspect of the country's culture and identity. Walking the Land offers an academic examination of these trails, including the prominent Israel National Trail, which runs from north to south. This system, marked by colorful blazes, influences popular culture and national discourse yet remains largely overlooked by international visitors and scholars. The book delves into the trails' historical significance and their role in national identity and conservation efforts.

Israel has one of the most extensive and highly developed hiking trail systems of any country in the world. Millions of hikers use the trails every year during holiday breaks, on mandatory school trips, and for recreational hikes. Walking the Land offers the first scholarly exploration of this unique trail system. Featuring more than ten thousand kilometers of trails, marked with hundreds of thousands of colored blazes, the trail system crisscrosses Israeli-controlled territory, from the country's farthest borders to its densest metropolitan areas. The thousand-kilometer Israel National Trail crosses the country from north to south. Hiking, trails, and the ubiquitous three-striped trail blazes appear everywhere in Israeli popular culture; they are the subjects of news articles, radio programs, television shows, best-selling novels, government debates, and even national security speeches. Yet the trail system is almost completely unknown to the millions of foreign tourists who visit every year and has been largely unstudied by scholars of Israel. Walking the Land explores the many ways that Israel's hiking trails are significant to its history, national identity, and conservation efforts.