Adjunct Professor
Pronouns: He/Him
University of Rochester, B.A., 1974
Vanderbilt University, Ph.D., 1982
University of Missouri, M.A., 1999
Email: [email protected]
Phone:
Curriculum Vitae
Dr. Will Soll currently serves as spiritual leader, Torah teacher and musician at Congregation Neve Shalom. His engagement with Jewish texts and tradition has taken many forms over the years.
Will received a Ph.D. in Religion at Vanderbilt University in 1981, with an emphasis on Hebrew Bible, and subsequently taught at the Sewanee School of Theology, College of the Ozarks, Aquinas Institute of Theology. More recently, he has taught classes at Webster University, Eden Seminary, and the Jewish Federation. He is the author of Psalm 119: Matrix, Form and Setting along with numerous articles and professional papers.
In 1999, Will earned an M.A. in Library Science. He served as cataloguer of rare Jewish books at Washington University and has lectured on “Hebrew printing in Amsterdam, 1624-1798”. Prior to that, he was a reference librarian at Webster University and subsequently served as Interim Director of the Eden Seminary library.
Will is also in demand as a musician, particularly as an exponent of Yiddish music and song. His concert presentation, “Vilna Remembered,” evokes the vibrant Jewish experience of what had been one of the foremost centers of Jewish learning and culture before the Nazi Horror. “A Yid in Amerika” presents the immigrant experience in song, and “Bob Dylan and the Yiddish Poets” enables listeners to hear both Dylan’s lyrics and Yiddish poetry in fresh ways. His musicianship has become a fixture at Congregation Neve Shalom for the past two decades, and since 2018 he has also taken on the responsibilities of service leader and leader of the weekly Torah study.
Will is currently at work on a book, The Consolation of Prophecy: Reading the Book of Isaiah between Tisha B’Av and Yom Kippur.
