Chaim Saiman
Professor of Law
Chair in Jewish Law
Biography
Chaim Saiman is a scholar of Jewish law, insurance law and private law and published Halakhah: The Rabbinic Idea of Law with Princeton University Press. Saiman has served as the Gruss Visiting Professor of Talmudic Law at both Harvard Law School and the University of Pennsylvania Law School, a visiting fellow at Princeton University and a visiting professor at the University of Toronto, Bar-Ilan, Hebrew University, IDC and Pepperdine University faculties of law. Saiman sits as a rabbinical court judge (dayyan) with the Beth Din of America and serves as an expert witness in insurance law and Jewish law in federal court.
Saiman received his BS from Georgia State University and his JD from Columbia University School of Law. He also studied for a number of years at Yeshivat Har-Etzion (Gush) and Yeshivat Kerem B’Yavneh in Israel. Prior to joining the faculty at Villanova, he was an Olin Fellow at Harvard Law School a Golieb Fellow at NYU Law School, a law clerk to Judge Michael McConnell on the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals and worked as a corporate associate with the firm Cleary Gottlieb in New York. At Villanova, Saiman teaches contracts, insurance law, insurance coverage disputes, Jewish law and arbitration.
Practice Experience
- Judicial Clerk to Michael McConnell, United States Court of Appeals (10th Circuit)
- Cleary, Gottlieb, Steen and Hamilton (New York)
- Joined the faculty in 2006
Recent Publications
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Rav Aharon Lichtenstein: An ‘Exilic’ Halakhist of Religious Zionism, Bar Ilan U. , December 2025
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The Hinge of Leviticus and the Heart of Yom Kippur, Published, September 2025
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The New Jewish Question: Simon Rabinovitch’s Sovereignty and Religious Freedom, IJL, August 2025
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Arbitration and the Rise of the Neo-Kahal (forthcoming), Scholarly, New , March 2025
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Legal Fictions in Jewish Law (forthcoming) , Horeb: Studies in Rabbinic Culture , January 2025
Recent Presentations
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'Association for Jewish Studies ', Arbitrating Religious Autonomy, AJS, Washington, DC. December 2025
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'CLE', Rabbinical Courts in American Law, Brandies Society, online. November 2025
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'Shabbat Scholar in Residence', Kingsway Jewish Center, Brooklyn, NEW. November 2025
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'Brodie Center, Conference on Jewish & Israeli Law', The American Beth Din System , Yale Law School , New Haven, CT. August 2025
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'Obligations XI ', The Faith of Fallen Lawyers: Jewish Law, the New Private Law and the Trouble with History, Harvard Law School , Cambridge, MA. July 2025
Office: Rm 339, John F. Scarpa Hall
Phone: 610-519-3296
Courses and Seminars
- Advanced Insurance Seminar
- Abitration: Law, Policy, and Procedure
- Commercial and Religious Arbitration
- Contracts
- Insurance Law
- Jewish Law Seminar
- Legislation
Education
- Columbia University School of Law, JD
- Georgia State University, BA
- Yeshivat Har Etzion
- Yeshivat Kerem B’Yavne
