Rabbi Kenneth S. Cohen, a native of Brooklyn, NY, was raised and educated in the Farmingdale/North Massapequa area of Long Island. Undergraduate studies were pursued at Hamilton College, Clinton, NY, from which he graduated Phi Beta Kappa, with departmental honors in religion. He spent his junior year abroad at the Hebrew university for his first year of graduate studies, and then took up residence in Philadelphia, PA, where he attended the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College and Temple University. He received an M.A. in religion from Temple in 1974, the following year, he was awarded the title Rabbi from the RRC.

Upon graduation from rabbinical school, Rabbi Cohen accepted the position of assistant rabbi/educational director at Congregation Beth Shalom, Wilmington, DE. After one year of service in that capacity, Rabbi Cohen was asked to serve as acting senior rabbi during the absence of his senior colleague for his sabbatical. When the senior rabbi announced he was making aliyah to Israel, Rabbi Cohen, at the ripe old age of 28, was elected the permanent senior rabbi of this 700-family congregation, then the largest in the State of Delaware. He remained in that position for some 13 years, during which he became deeply involved in myriad of adult education, interfaith and communal activities and organizations on local and national levels, such as the National Conference of Christians and Jews and State of Israel Bonds National Rabbinic Cabinet. In his "spare time" he continued to take courses at Temple University's Department of Religion and was appointed assistant professor of history at the University of Delaware, for whom he taught courses on the History of Biblical Israel.

It was this exposure to college-level teaching that inspired Rabbi Cohen to return to his doctoral studies on a more concentrated basis, leaving the demands of a major pulpit for the opportunity of pursuing his education. He accepted the position of rabbi of Ohev Shalom Congregation of York, PA, where he served over 8 years, while finishing his course work at Temple University. During that period of time, he introduced egalitarianism into the conduct of worship and ritual at the shul, created a large number of creative adult education and social programs for the membership, taught and supervised the Hebrew school and the B'nai Mitzvah, established community-wide programs and innovations that have helped change the Jewish community of York into a more modern, sophisticated one. He became active once again in Jewish summer camping, and focused attention on reaching out to our youth in informal modes of Jewish education. With coursework done at Temple, with renewed desire to return to a larger Jewish community and all it can offer, Rabbi Cohen came with his family to Morton Grove and Northwest Suburban Jewish Congregation.