Rabbi Samuel M. Stahl became Rabbi Emeritus of Temple Beth-El, in San Antonio, Texas, in 2002, after serving for 26 years as its Senior Rabbi. Previously, he served as a Chaplain in the United States Army and as Rabbi of Temple B'nai Israel (The Henry Cohen Memorial) in Galveston, Texas.

A native of Sharon, Pennsylvania, he was graduated from the University of Pittsburgh in 1961. He was ordained a rabbi at Hebrew Union College - Jewish Institute of Religion in Cincinnati in 1967 and also holds Doctor of Hebrew Letters and Doctor of Divinity degrees from that seminary.

Committed to enhancing Christian-Jewish relations, Rabbi Stahl is the first Jew ever to receive religious leadership awards from the Texas Conference of Churches and the San Antonio Community of Churches. He also serves on a number of organizational boards in the Jewish and general communities, both on the local and national levels.

For six years, he was editor of the Journal of Reform Judaism and is the author of Making the Timeless Timely: Thoughts and Reflections of a Contemporary Reform Rabbi. His second book, Boundaries, Not Barriers: Some Uniquely Jewish Perspectives on Life, was published recently.

During the summer of 2003, he was the Theologian-in-Residence at Chautauqua Institution, in New York state, where he has also been a lecturer.

He and his wife, Lynn, have two daughters, Heather Katz and Alisa Stahl, and two grandchildren, Austin Phillip and Carli Morgan Katz.