William Kolbrener, at The Blogs

Sep 26, 2024, 12:44 PM

Jewish repentance -- teshuva -- has a message for humanities educators today, especially those who 'cancel' the past: We and our students can only be, as the poet John Milton wrote, 'authors to ourselves' if we remember from where...

Sep 17, 2024, 12:28 AM

No Satisfaction – Rosh Hashanah and Repentance

Without Jesus, in the Christian story, God gets no Satisfaction. Human Evil is turned into the doctrinal reality of Original Sin - which can only be overcome - satisfied - by the sacrifice of the man/God, Jesus. In this 1410...

Sep 10, 2024, 1:43 PM

Fanatical Narcissism and the Poetry of Leadership

Isabela in Shakespeare's Measure for Measure is an aspiring nun and saint-like figure of mercy. But when the going gets rough, she changes into her opposite, demanding - she cries out: ''justice, justice, justice, justice!' Shakespeare's conflicted heroine riffs on...

Sep 4, 2024, 2:10 AM

Bibi’s Dangerous Dance of Extremes

The Finance Minister and Prime Minister on the Knesset Floor

'Those that are in extremity are abominable fellows' -Rosalind, Shakespeare's As You Like It How did we get back to the Summer of 2023? Divisions that we all believed - we swore! - after October 7th would not return? But it’s September...

May 11, 2020, 11:48 AM

Reading in the Time of Corona

"Purify the idea of God," says Thomas Mann’s Pharaoh in Joseph and His Brothers, "and you purify man." Although many of us, suffering under the monopolies of self-proclaimed theological elites, have abandoned the divine, lately, in our collective solitude,...

Jun 9, 2016, 4:50 PM

Broken tablets are better: A non-fundamentalist Shavuot

We remember the giving of the first tablets of the Torah on Shavuot – but our inheritance is the second tablets, given only after the sin of the Golden Calf. Yes, we are inspired by the first tablets – the ideals of...

May 9, 2012, 8:01 AM

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Of marriage and military service

Many young men in the ultra-Orthodox world are ready to marry their faith to work and military service

About Me

William Kolbrener is an English Professor at Bar Ilan University in Israel, and Executive Director of Writing on the Wall, a platform dedicated to creative expression after October 7th. We fight antisemitism through strengthening ourselves with our shared courage, and our voices, telling the world. Bill is the author of several critically acclaimed books, including Mary Astell: Reason, Gender, Faith, Open Minded Torah, Milton’s Warring Angels, and The Last Rabbi. His works explore themes ranging from religious thought and gender studies to literary criticism and Jewish philosophy.

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