Halakhah: The Rabbinic Idea of Law
Halakhah: The Rabinnic Idea of Law with Chaim Saiman, Jan. 10 at 5 p.m.
Thursday, January 10, 2019
5:00 p.m. | Duke Law School, Room 3043
Chaim Saiman, Professor of Law at the Charles Widger School of Law, Villanova University, will discuss his recent book, "Halakhah: The Rabbinic Idea of Law" (Princeton University Press, 2018). "In this panoramic book, he traces how generations of rabbis have used concepts forged in talmudic disputation to do the work that other societies assign not only to philosophy, political theory, theology, and ethics but also to art, drama, and literature." Moderated by Prof. Ralf Michaels. Co-sponsored by Duke Law School, the Center for International and Comparative Law, and the Duke Center for Jewish Studies. For information, contact Balfour Smith at bsmith@law.duke.edu.
Biography
Chaim Saiman is a scholar of Jewish law, insurance law, and private law. Professor Saiman served as the Gruss Visiting Professor of Talmudic Law at both Harvard Law School and the University of Pennsylvania Law School, as a visiting fellow at Princeton University, and as a visiting professor at the University of Toronto, Bar-Ilan, Hebrew University and IDC faculties of law. He has also served as an arbitrator on rabbinical courts and as an expert witness in insurance law and Jewish law in federal court.
Professor Saiman received his B.S. from Georgia State University and his J.D. from Columbia University School of Law. He also studied 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, he teaches Contracts, Insurance Law, Insurance Coverage Disputes, Jewish Law, and Legislation.