Heilman was born in May, 1946, to Henry and Lucia Heilman, both Polish survivors of the Holocaust who were saved by Oskar Schindler. After World War II the family went to West Germany with the encouragement of the American occupation forces, who wanted a Jewish presence there. Heilman is married to Ellin Marcia Heilman, a psychologist in private practice. Together, they have four children, Adam, Uriel, Avram and Jonah.

Heilman holds the Harold Proshansky Chair in Jewish Studies at the CUNY Graduate Center of Queens College of the City University of New York, where he also serves as a Distinguished Professor of Sociology. He has been a visiting professor at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, Tel Aviv University, and a Fulbright visiting professor at the University of Nanjing in China and the Universities of New South Wales and Melbourne in Australia. He has given a number of lectures, including at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, Rutgers University, Harvard University, the University of Maryland, Carelton College, Sydney University, Spertus College, the University of Pennsylvania, and Brandeis University, among others. Heilman has also been a guest lecturer at Chonnam University in Gwangju, South Korea, he has given the Rosen Lecture at Queen’s University in Kingston, Ontario, the Michaelson Lecture at the University of California at Santa Barbara (2008) and the Stroum Lectures at the University of Washington (1993).

He is the author of a number of articles and reviews as well as ten books: Synagogue Life, The People of the Book, The Gate Behind the Wall, A Walker in Jerusalem, Cosmopolitans and Parochials: Modern Orthodox Jews in America (co-authored with Steven M. Cohen), Defenders of the Faith: Inside Ultra-Orthodox Jewry, Portrait of American Jews: The Last Half of the 20th Century, When a Jew Dies: The Ethnography of a Bereaved Son, Sliding to the Right: The Contest for the Future of American Jewish Orthodoxy, and The Rebbe: The Life and Afterlife of Menachem Mendel Schneerson (co-authored with Menachem Friedman). Heilman is also editor of the Death, Bereavement, and Mourning (Transaction Books, 2005), and is a frequent contributor to a number of magazines and newspapers. For a time, he was a regular columnist for The Jewish Week, and is currently the Editor-in-Chief of Contemporary Jewry.

Heilman has been frequently tapped for quotes as well as op ed pieces in various mainstream publications that reflect his standing as a well-respected voice on issues relating to American Jewish life. He has also written various lettes to the editor in many publications, reflecting his interests in issues relating to American Jewish life and current events in the Middle East..

In 2004, Heilman won the Marshall Sklare Memorial Award for his lifetime of scholarship from the Association for the Social Scientific Study of Jewry he also was awarded the highest university rank of Distinguished Professor of Sociology by the City University of New York. His book, The Gate Behind the Wall, was honored with the Present Tense Magazine Literary Award for the best book of 1984 in the "Religious Thought" category. A Walker in Jerusalem received the National Jewish Book Award for 1987 and Defenders of the Faith was a finalist for the National Jewish Book Award for 1992. Portrait of American Jewry: The Last Half of the 20th Century was honored with the 1996 [first] Gratz College Tuttleman Library Centennial Award. When a Jew Dies won both the Koret Award in 2003 and the National Jewish Book Award in 2004. Heilman is also recipient of fellowships from the National Science Foundation, the National Endowment for the Humanities, the American Council of Learned Societies, the Memorial Foundation for Jewish Culture, and the Mellon Foundation. He received a Distinguished Faculty Award from the City University of New York in 1985 and 1987. He has been a member of the board of the Association for Jewish Studies and the YIVO Annual and the Max Weinreich Center.

As a prominent scholar who writes about different sectors of the Jewish community, Heilman's statements have been a target for praise as well as criticism, largely among those about whom he has written. Shortly after the publication of The Rebbe: The Life and Afterlife of Menachem Mendel Schneerson (Princeton University Press, 2010) (written by Heilman and co-authored by Menachem Friedman), Lubavitcher Rabbi Shmuley Boteach criticized the book, writing in the Jerusalem Post that the book's central thesis had a "fatal flaw", though he in the end concluded the book had "merit" and provided a "humanizing portrait."

David Klinghoffer, a ba'al teshuva, asserted that, "there are peculiar omissions and contradictions. [...] Readers of this biography may wonder if the authors have failed to grasp their subject," in his review for London's Jewish Chronicle. Nevertheless, Klinghoffer himself has been the target of charges that he is paid to promote his ideas by his employer, the Discovery Institute, which some have identified as a Christian think tank that is funded by organizations that seek to promote a "Christian-friendly world view."

These misgivings stand in contrast to many positive reviews: Publishers Weekly called the book an "outstanding biography," as did the Library Journal. Dr. A Nadler of the Forward called it "lively and provocative" and pointed to its "rich" chapters." In Moment, former poet laureate Robert Pinsky praised the book, as did Jewish Ideas Daily, the Tablet, the Jewish Post and Opinion and many others.Perhaps the controversy is best summed up in the feature story written about the book in the New York Times.

After Heilman's publication of Sliding to the Right: The Contest for the Future of American Jewish Orthodoxy, Dr. Marvin Schick, a former political-science professor at Hunter College and son of a Rabbi, dedicated his weekly paid advertizement in the Jewish Week to the book, calling it "nonsense and offensive.". Schick further asserted that Heilman "detests much of the Orthodox community" and that this influences the objectivity of his scholarship. Opposing Schick's comments are academic reviews such as Anna Dogole in History in Review, the University of California Press which called the book "timely and compelling", D. R. Kaufman in Contemporary Sociology, and others (see Shofar, The Jewish Press, etc.).

Criticism outside of Heilman's writing has been rare, though in 1996 he was quoted in the press as opposing the appointment of Thomas Bird as head of the Jewish Studies department at Queens College. Heilman's opposition spilled over into the media, where Heilman pointed to the fact that Bird held no Ph.D. while commentators took up the issue of Bird's Catholicism. At the time, Queens College President Allen Sessoms criticized Heilman, but subsequently appointed the late Dr. Benny Kraut, an Orthodox Jew, as head of the program. Sessoms was later forced to resign after a five year tenure as President in 2002, and the issue did not hamper Heilman's appointment as Distinguished Professor of Sociology at Queens, the highest rank in the City University, in 2004.