Rachel Isaacs is the first openly lesbian rabbi ordained by the Conservative movement’s Jewish Theological Seminary ("JTS"), which occurred in May 2011. She transferred to JTS from the Reform movement’s Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion in her third year of rabbinical school. Isaacs previously earned her B.A. from Wellesley College in 2005, where she was the Hillel Co-President.
She is now the rabbi of Beth Israel Congregation in Waterville, Maine.

Isaacs was mentored at JTS by Rabbi Carie Carter, who placed the tallit across Isaacs' shoulders at her ordination. Rabbi Carter was a closeted lesbian during her own time at JTS, and wrote the originally-anonymous chapter "In Hiding" about lesbian Conservative rabbis in the 2001 book Lesbian Rabbis: The First Generation. Rabbi Carter is now openly lesbian, and works at Brooklyn's Park Slope Jewish Center, which Rachel Isaacs interned at.