New ATID e-Publication: William Kolbrener's
The Literature Curriculum in the Twenty-First Century Jewish Day School

How do we take our general sense of the values of the culture and literary tradition of the West, and transmit that enthusiasm - while integrating it into a Torah life - for our students? More generally - and this is one of the great challenges of education, but especially for Modern Orthodoxy today - how do we bring together the ideal of our desire to expose our children to Torah and Western culture and the real life challenges - cultural and institutionally - which we face? Even more how can we implement a literature curriculum in Jewish Day Schools while being both fully present to the opportunities it affords, while also being conscious of the challenges it poses as well? Can we make our students enthusiastic about literature and Western culture in a way which will both open their minds, and not compromise - maybe even strengthen - their Jewish perspectives?

These questions are addressed by Professor William Kolbrener in ATID's newest e-publication, The Literature Curriculum in the Twenty-First Century Jewish Day School.

Click here... to download the publication (PDF, 48 pages)

An American born writer and scholar, with degrees from Oxford and Columbia, William Kolbrener lives in Jerusalem and is a professor of English Literature at Bar Ilan University in Israel. His Milton's Warring Angels, an internationally acclaimed work on the author of Paradise Lost. Kolbrener has written in major scholarly journals in literature, history, theology, psychoanalysis, and cultural criticism. He has also written on Jewish topics in Commentary, The Jewish Review of Books, The Jewish Daily Forward, the Jerusalem Post, the AJS Review, Tradition and many other Jewish publications. His newest book - bringing together Jewish and Western thought - Open Minded Torah: Of Irony, Fundamentalism and Love was published by Continuum in 2011.