Born in Swislocz, Poland, he studied in the yeshivas of Slonim and Mir. He went to the US in 1929 and received his doctorate at Brown University in 1935. He then joined the faculty of Yeshiva College, New York, and was appointed dean of its Rabbi Isaac Elchanan Seminary in 1940. Belkin became president of the college and the seminary in 1943 and under his guidance the institution expanded rapidly and became Yeshiva University in 1945. As a scholar he published many works on Jewish law and Hellenistic literature, including Philo and the Oral Law.

Bibliography:

BELKIN, Samuel. In His image; the Jewish philosophy of man as expressed in rabbinic tradition. 290 p London, New York, Abelard-Schuman [1960]

BELKIN, Samuel. Philo and the oral law; the Philonic interpretation of Biblical law in relation to the Palestinian Halakah. Pp. xiv, 292. Cambridge, Mass., Harvard university press, 1940.

BELKIN, Samuel. The philosophy of purpose. Pp. 39 p. 3d ed. New York, Yeshiva University, 1958.

BELKIN, Samuel. Midrash ha-shemot be-Filon. Pp. 61. [New York, 1956]

BELKIN, Samuel. Essays in traditional Jewish thought. Pp. 191. New York: Philosophical Library [c1956]

BELKIN, Samuel. Midrash she´elot u-teshuvot `al Bereshit u-Shemot le-Filon ha-Aleksandroni. Pp. 74p. [New York, 1960]

YESHIVA UNIVERSITY. Inauguration of Rabbi Samuel Belkin, PH.D., as president, Tuesday afternoon, May twenty-third, nineteen hundred and forty-four, at three o'clock, in the Nathan Lamport auditorium. Pp. 57. [Easton, Pa., Printed by Mack printing co., 1945]

Links:

Samuel Belkin Memorial Awards