Avrom Bendavid-Val lives in Washington, D.C. with his wife, Leah, who is also an author. He worked as a consultant in economic development and environmental management in America and in poorer countries for 45 years. During his career he traveled and worked in Africa, Asia, East and Central Europe, and the Middle East, and published several books in his field.
In 1997, while working in Poland, he decided to visit the town his father and grandfather came from, Trochenbrod, in what is today northwestern Ukraine. He discovered that there were no physical remnants of Trochenbrod, and that it had been a unique settlement in many ways.