Lecturer Bios
Rabbi Shlomo Weissmann, Esq.
Rabbi Weissmann received rabbinical ordination from RIETS in 2001 and advanced rabbinical ordination (Yadin Yadin) in 2014. He is a graduate of Columbia Law School, where he was a Harlan Fiske Stone Scholar. Prior to his association with the Beth Din of America, Rabbi Weissmann worked as an attorney at several prominent law firms, including Debevoise and Plimpton LLP.
Chaim Saiman, Esq.
Professor Chaim Saiman is a professor of law and chair of the Jewish law department at Villanova Law School. He is the author of Halakhah: The Rabbinic Idea of Law published by Princeton University Press. Professor 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 and IDC faculties of law. He also serves as a dayan (arbitrator) at the Beth Din of America and as an expert witness in insurance law and Jewish law in federal court. At Villanova, Professor Saiman teaches Contracts, Insurance Law, Insurance Coverage Disputes, Jewish Law, and Legislation.
A scholar of Jewish law, insurance law and private law, Saiman joined the Villanova Law faculty in 2006, and teaches Contracts, Insurance Law, Insurance Coverage Disputes, Jewish Law, and Legislation. In 2018, he published Halakhah: The Rabbinic Idea of Law, which explores how rabbis examined the Talmud and used it to frame philosophy and discussions in a legal way. Saiman was the Gruss Visiting Professor of Talmudic Law at both Harvard Law School and the University of Pennsylvania Law School, as well as a visiting fellow at Princeton University and a visiting professor at the University of Toronto, Bar-Ilan University and Hebrew University. Saiman has also served as a rabbinical court arbitrator (dayan) on the Beth Din of America, and as an expert witness in insurance law and Jewish law in federal court.
Prior to joining Villanova Law, Saiman was an Olin Fellow at Harvard Law School, a Golieb Fellow at NYU Law School, a law clerk to the Hon. Michael McConnell on the United States Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit, and he also worked as a corporate associate with Cleary Gottlieb in New York City.
Saiman received his BS from Georgia State University and his JD from Columbia University School of Law. He also studied at Yeshivat Har-Etzion (Gush) and Yeshivat Kerem B’Yavneh in Israel.
Rabbi Michoel Zylberman
Rabbi Michoel Zylberman serves as S'gan Menahel of the Beth Din of America, where he also serves as a dayan (arbitrator) and oversees the halachic aspects of gittin (Jewish divorces). Rabbi Zylberman is a Yadin Yadin musmach of RIETS and a graduate of the Bella and Harry Wexner Kolel Elyon. He also serves on the academic faculty of RIETS and has published articles in numerous rabbinic journals.
