Julie Schwartz broke new ground as the first woman rabbi to serve as an active duty chaplain in the US Military. Schwartz studied history at Northwestern University before receiving her ordination from Hebrew Union College – Jewish Institute of Religion in 1986. She served as a chaplain at the Naval Hospital in Oakland, California for three years, then returned to HUC–JIR, where she took on various roles as director of alumni relations and national director of continuing rabbinic education. She also founded a rabbinic mentoring program and HUC–JIR’s clinical pastoral education program, the first of its kind at a rabbinical seminary. In 1999 she moved to Atlanta, Georgia, where she became the founding rabbi of the Weinstein Hospice and rabbi of Temple B’nai Israel. In 2001 she became associate rabbi for Temple Emanu-El in Atlanta, and in 2004 was promoted to senior rabbi. While there, she also served as treasurer and vice president of the Atlanta Rabbinical Association. In 2011 she rejoined the faculty of HUC–JIR as a professor and supervisor of the clinical pastoral education program.