Quick Facts
Biography
Julie Schwartz is an American rabbi. She was born in Cincinnati and, in 1986, she became the first woman to serve as an active-duty Jewish chaplain in the U.S. Navy, the very same year she was ordained by the Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion. She counseled patients at the naval hospital in Oakland, California, and after a three-year tour of duty she returned to Cincinnati and held assorted jobs at HUC-JIR.
Eventually she became the third rabbi to be certified as a Clinical Pastoral Educator by the Association for Clinical Pastoral Educators, after which she founded HUC-JIR's course of study in pastoral counseling for rabbinical students.
In 1999, she became the first rabbi of B'nai Israel, the south side's first Jewish congregation in Fayette County, Georgia; they had previously been served by rabbinical students.
In 2011, she returned to HUC-JIR to head the pastoral care and counseling program she founded.