Rabbi
Rabbi Jonathan Israel Kohn led synagogues in Connecticut, Texas, and New York before joining Congregation Kneseth Israel in 2006. He earned a BA in Philosophy from the University of Toronto in 1976, an MA in English from the University of Minnesota in 1981, and an MA in Rabbinics from the Jewish Theological Seminary of America (JTSA) in 1987, from which he was ordained the same year.
He completed his Counselling Internship at the Jewish Board of Family & Children’s Services, Bronx NY, in 1987. He is certified in Kashrut supervision by the Rav Hamakhshir program of JTSA. Rabbi Kohn also studied acting at the State University of New York at Albany, mathematics at Rutgers University, and Bible at Hebrew University in Jerusalem. He served as Vice President of the Connecticut Valley Rabbinical Assembly and Secretary of the Greater New Haven Board of Rabbis. He has served also on the Talmud faculty at the Rabbi Harry Halpern Hebrew School in Brooklyn NY. He won the State of Israel Bonds Israel Freedom Award in 1990. Rabbi Kohn is active in the Coalition of Elgin Religious Leaders, serving on the Planning Committee of each year’s Interfaith Thanksgiving Service and of most of the Coalition’s other public programs since 2006. He served as guest instructor on Judaism at Bartlett High School in 2010. He is the author of several works in English verse, including The Chelmiad, Chana and the Latke Machine, and, a favorite of his four children, a Dr. Seuss parody called Sir Muggins of Gumps. Rabbi Kohn guides Congregation Kneseth Israel on a consistent centrist Conservative path, in order to meet the spiritual, social, and cultural Jewish needs of all our highly diverse community. | 
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