Belkin was born in 1913 in Petrograd, Russian Empire, and became a citizen of the United States by 1938.
[1] Belkin continued to work at Cornell, at first as assistant entomologist for two years, and later as an entomology Instructor, a position which he kept till 1942.
The same year, he got a job as junior entomologist for the Tennessee Valley Authority, but was drafted into the United States Army Sanitary Corps.
[1] In 1945 he was reassigned to General Douglas MacArthur as a liaison officer with the Russian army.
[1] When his army service finished in 1946, Belkin returned to Cornell, where he got his PhD in medical entomology.