Joseph was the oldest child and had a younger brother David Julevich Karakis (1904–1970) who has chosen to become a doctor, and was a colonel and chief of medical squadron during World War II.

From 1909 till 1917 Joseph Karakis studied at Vinnytsia Realschule, while attending evening drawing classes of Abraham Cherkassky.

In 1918, he worked as a painter decorator in Vinnytsia theater at Matthew Drak for the troupe of Hnat Yura, Amvrosy Buchma and Marian Krushelnitskiy.

[4] In 1926, while studying, he worked as a senior technician in the construction of the Kiev railway station with his teacher Alexander Verbitsky,[5] then assistant to the design as well as the implementation of the Academy of Sciences and first in Ukraine house for doctor's families located on Velyka Zhytomyrska str.

[5] In 1927, in a secret from their parents married Conservatory student of piano major Anna Kopman (1904–1993), who was considered one of the Kiev beauties.

[7] Before the war, Karakis was an architect of various houses and public buildings, among which were the Jewish Theatre in Kiev, the National Museum of Ukraine and others.

In 1977, following the invitation of B. E. Yasievich (1929–1992), he joined for some time the Kiev Research Institute of History, Theory and prospective problems of Soviet architecture.

among those people are: Anatoly Dobrovolsky, Abraham Moiseevich Miletsky, Yuri Aseev, Valentin Ezhov, Vadim Skugarev, Boris Zhezherin, Anatoly Ignaschenko, Viktor Chepelyk, Zoya V. Moiseenko, Boris M. Davidson (Karakis helped him to defend his doctoral architectural thesis), Yuriy Khimich and more.