Rabbi Paul F. Cohen, D.Min. is originally from Chicago. He became a Bar Mitzvah and was confirmed at Beth Emet in Evanston. Rabbi attended Olin-Sang-Ruby Union Institute Camp as a camper for many years, eventually serving as a counselor and Unit Head. He graduated with a bachelor's degree from Grinnell College where he studied biology and comparative religion. (For an article about Rabbi Cohen featured in the Spring, 2006 issue of Grinnell Magazine, click here.) Upon graduation, he moved to Minneapolis where he worked for two years in a short-term residential treatment program for delinquent adolescents.

Rabbi Cohen received his Masters of Arts and rabbinic ordination from the Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion in Cincinnati, Ohio. While there, he served as the student rabbi for the United Hebrew Congregation in Ft. Smith, Arkansas and the auxiliary chaplain at the Wright Patterson Air Force Base in Dayton, Ohio. Rabbi Cohen's rabbinical thesis was titled: "Modes of Divine Communication: Some Aspects of the Rabbinic Views" which focused on some of the less conventional ways rabbis expected to send and receive communication vis a vis heaven. Rabbi Cohen was awarded a Doctor of Ministry degree from the Bangor Theological Seminary in May, 2001. His dissertation is entitled "Digging Our Parent's Wells" and deals with congregational renewal.

While in Cincinnati, Rabbi Cohen met his wife, Cathy, and together they moved to Norfolk, Virginia where he served as the assistant and then associate rabbi of Ohef Sholom Temple. Active on many community boards of directors, Rabbi Cohen was the founding president of the South Hampton Roads Campaign for the Homeless. Immediately prior to serving Temple Jeremiah, Rabbi Paul Cohen was the spiritual leader of Congregation Bet Ha'am in South Portland, Maine and served on the boards of the Jewish Federation, Cedars Nursing Home, the Equity Institute and the Cancer Community Center. He was the president of the Greater Portland Interfaith Council, a founding member of the Religious Coalition Against Discrimination and the Maine Interfaith Coalition for Reproductive Choices and sat on its executive board. Politically and communally active, Rabbi Cohen has been asked on several occasions to offer testimony before state legislative committees.

Rabbi Cohen serves as chair of the Rabbinic Advisory Committee of Olin-Sang Ruby Union Institute, sits on the board of the Chicago Association of Reform Rabbis and the Interfaith Housing Center of the North Shore, serves as Vice President of the Chicago Board of Rabbis and is a member of the Winnetka Interfaith Council, the North Shore Fellowship of Rabbis and the Ethics Committee of the North Shore Senior Center. He is a marathon runner, completed the 2001 LaSalle Bank Chicago Marathon, and enjoys cycling with his four children.

For a copy of Rabbi Cohen's latest Covenant article, click here.