Rabbi Debra Newman Kamin came to Am Yisrael in 1990. In 1994 she became the Congregation's sole Rabbi. At that time Am Yisrael became the first congregation in the Chicago metropolitan area to be headed by a woman, and for many years was the largest Conservative congregation in the country to have that distinction. Rabbi Newman Kamin provides keen intellectual and spiritual guidance to the congregation. She is the immediate past President of the Rabbinical Assembly, the international membership Organization of Conservative Rabbis. Rabbi Newman Kamin also serves on the Chancellor's Cabinet of the Jewish Theological Seminary, the seminary that trains and ordains Conservative rabbis. She is a Hartman Fellow. Rabbi Newman Kamin is the 2005 recipient of the Jewish Theological Seminary's Rabbi Simon Greenberg Rabbinic Achievement Award. Rabbi Newman Kamin is married and the mother of three adult children.