Arthur (Art) Green grew up in Newark, New Jersey in a nonobservant Jewish home. He describes his father as a "militant atheist," but his mother, from a traditional family, felt obligated to give her son a Jewish education. Green has published many works on Jewish mysticism and hasidism. Invited to deliver a series of lectures at Yale University, Green was described as "one of the preeminent authorities on Jewish spirituality, mysticism and Hasidism."