Rabbi Joseph S. Topek is Jewish Chaplain at Stony Brook Medicine, the Stony Brook University Medical Center, serving the Long Island State Veterans Home and University Hospital. He is Director Emeritus of the Hillel Foundation for Jewish Life at Stony Brook University, Chaplain Emeritus in the University Interfaith Center, where he also served as Chairman, and instructor in the University Undergraduate Colleges.
Rabbi Topek holds a BA in Humanities and Judaic Studies from the University of Texas at Austin, an MA in Contemporary Jewish Studies from Brandeis University, and Rabbinic Ordination from the Academy for Jewish Religion. He has served previously at Temple Emunah in Lexington, MA, the Jewish Community Relations Council of Boston, and directed the Hillel Foundation at Virginia Commonwealth University from 1979-1982 and at Stony Brook University from 1982-2019. He has served on the National Board of the Association of Hillel and Jewish Campus Professionals, is Past President of the Suffolk County Board of Rabbis, an officer of the Harry G. Friedman Society, a member of the Long Island Board of Rabbis, the New York Board of Rabbis, the Association for Jewish Studies, and the Society for Military History. He is married to Susan Remick Topek, a retired consultant on Jewish early childhood education and the author of several Jewish children’s books, and they are the parents of three daughters and six grandchildren.