Rachel Isaacs

Rachel Isaacs was the first openly lesbian rabbi ordained by the Conservative movement's Jewish Theological Seminary ("JTS"), which occurred in May 2011.

Biography Isaacs earned her B.A. from Wellesley College in 2005, where she was the Hillel Co-president. She transferred to the Jewish Theological Seminary (JTS) from the Reform movement's Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion in her third year of rabbinical school. Isaacs was mentored at JTS by Rabbi Carie Carter, who placed the tallit across Isaacs' shoulders at her ordination.

In 2014, Isaacs was named one of "America's Most Inspiring Rabbis" by the Jewish Daily Forward.

She is now the rabbi of Congregation Beth Israel in Waterville, Maine, which is a Conservative synagogue, as well as the Dorothy "Bibby" Levine Alfond Assistant Professor of Jewish Studies at Colby College. She is also the director of the Center for Small Town Jewish Life, also at Colby.