Rabbi Stephen Karol, a Kansas City native who lives on Long Island in New York, was honored by his synagogue when it announced its new youth lounge would be named for him.
Rabbi Karol is a rabbi emeritus of Temple Isaiah, a Reform Synagogue in Stony Brook, New York, which he led from 2002 until 2014. He was honored by officially opening its Rabbi Stephen A. Karol Youth Lounge in February.
Synagogue leadership told Times Beacon Record (TBR) News Media that congregants “thought the most appropriate way to honor Rabbi Karol’s time at Temple Isaiah would be something for youngsters. During his dozen years as spiritual leader, his focused outreach to children and teenagers was clear. Lifelong relationships with former students, now adults (several of them rabbis), continue.”
Rabbi Karol told The Chronicle that he considers his work as “paying it forward.”
“I was fortunate enough to have had financial and moral support from [The Temple, Congregation] B’nai Jehudah that encouraged me to be in youth group, go to camp and go to Israel,” he said. “When I became a rabbi, I wanted the students at my congregations in Buffalo, Boston and Stony Brook to have the kind of support that I did.”
After leaving Kansas City, he was ordained at the Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion (HUC-JIR) in Cincinnati, Ohio in 1977. He has served at synagogues in Buffalo, New York, and Hingham, Massachusetts, in addition to at Temple Isaiah. He also authored a book, “Finding Hope and Faith in the Face of Death: Insights of a Rabbi and Mourner,” in 2018.
Rabbi Karol lives in Port Jefferson Station, New York, on Long Island, with his wife, Donna. He is the brother of Rabbi Larry Karol (z”l), former rabbi of Temple Beth Sholom in Topeka, Kansas.