Saul Berman

  • Adjunct Professor of Law

Rabbi Saul J. Berman is a leading Orthodox teacher and thinker.

As a rabbi, a scholar, and an educator, Berman has made extensive contributions to the intensification of women's Jewish education, to the role of social ethics in Synagogue life, and to the understanding of the applicability of Jewish law to contemporary society.

Berman is a contributor to the Encyclopedia Judaica and is the author of numerous articles, which have been published in journals, such as Tradition, Judaism, Journal of Jewish Studies, Dinei Yisrael, and many others. His writings on the subject of women in halachah and on issues of halachah and contemporary society have often been reprinted.

Berman was appointed chairman of the Department of Judaic Studies of Stern College for Women of Yeshiva University in 1971. Under his leadership over the past 13 years, it grew into the largest undergraduate Department of Jewish Studies in the United States. In 1984, Berman accepted the position as senior rabbi of Lincoln Square Synagogue in Manhattan, where he served until 1990.

Berman returned to academic life as associate professor of Jewish Studies at Stern College, and as an adjunct Professor at Columbia University School of Law, where he teaches a seminar in Jewish Law.

He earned his J.D. at New York University in 1963 and his M.A. from University of California at Berkeley in 1966. Berman was ordained at Yeshiva University, from which he also received his B.A. and M.H.L. in 1959 and 1962.