Amy Perlin

Amy Perlin is the first female rabbi in the United States to start her own congregation, Temple B'nai Shalom in Fairfax Station, Virginia, of which she was the founding rabbi in 1986. In 1978, she graduated from Princeton University with a degree in Near Eastern Studies, with summa cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa honors. That year she was also honored by Jewish Women International (JWI) as one of its "Women to Watch". In 2013 she was inducted onto the Board of Governors of HUC-JIR, and was included in The Jewish Daily Forward's list of America's 36 Most Inspiring Rabbis. She is married and has two children, and she and her husband Gary have started a family foundation.

The 2022 art exhibit “Holy Sparks”, shown among other places at the Dr. Bernard Heller Museum, featured art about twenty-four female rabbis who were firsts in some way; Deborah Ugoretz created the artwork about Perlin that was in that exhibit.