What do you think?
Rate this book
Rabbi Daniel Winter Mysteries
An Eye for an Eye
When a prominent celebrity photographer is acquitted for the murder of his girlfriend, young law student Donna Braun, Rabbi Daniel Winter is hired to defend Braun's father, indicted for shooting his daughter's murderer. Reprint.
- GenresMystery
237 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1991
31 people want to read
About the author
Joseph Telushkin
49 books172 followersJoseph Telushkin (born 1948) is an American rabbi, lecturer, and best selling author. His more than 15 books include several volumes about Jewish ethics, Jewish Literacy, as well as "Rebbe", a New York Times best seller released in June 2014
Telushkin was raised in Brooklyn, New York, the son of Solomon and Hellen Telushkin. He attended Yeshiva of Flatbush where met his future co-author Dennis Prager. While at Columbia University, they authored Nine Questions People Ask About Judaism and Why the Jews?: The Reason for Antisemitism.
While at University, Telushkin was an active leader of the Student Struggle for Soviet Jewry. As part of his position, Telushkin visited the Soviet Union where he met with dissidents such as Andrei Sakharov. He was eventually listed by the KGB as an anti-Russian agent.
An Orthodox rabbi by training, Telushkin serves as a spiritual leader of Los Angeles’ Synagogue for the Performing Arts, founded in 1972 by Rabbi Jerome Cutler. He is an associate of the National Jewish Center for Learning and Leadership and a former director of education at the non-denominational Brandeis-Bardin Institute. Telushkin is also a Senior Associate with CLAL, the National Jewish Center for Learning and Leadership, and is a member of the board of directors of the Jewish Book Council. He has been on the Newsweek's list of the 50 most influential Rabbis in America since 1997.
Telushkin is the author of sixteen books on Judaism. His book, Words that Hurt, Words that Heal, inspired Senators Joseph Lieberman’s and Connie Mack’s Senate Resolution #151 to establish a National Speak No Evil Day in the United States, a day in which Americans would go for twenty-four hours without saying anything unkind or unfair about, or to, anyone. His book, Jewish Literacy: The Most Important Things to Know About the Jewish Religion, Its People and Its History, is one of the best-selling books on Judaism of the past two decades. More than two decades after its publication, the book remains a foundation text for Jews, non-Jews, and prospective converts alike. The first volume of A Code of Jewish Ethics, entitled A Code of Jewish Ethics: You Shall be Holy, which Telushkin regards as his major life's work, was published in 2006. The second volume, entitled, A Code of Jewish Ethics: Love Your Neighbor, was released in 2009.
In 2013, Telushkin was invited by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, António Guterres to speak before the commission in Geneva.
In 2014, Telushkin released "Rebbe: The life and teachings of Menachem M. Schneerson, the most influential Rabbi in Modern History" which appeared on all the major best seller lists including New York Times Best Seller list, Wall Street Journal and Publishers Weekly.
Telushkin tours the United States as a lecturer on Jewish topics, and has been named by Talk Magazine as one of the fifty best speakers in the United States. He wrote the episode 'Bar Mitzvah' on Touched by an Angel guest starring Kirk Douglas.
Telushkin was raised in Brooklyn, New York, the son of Solomon and Hellen Telushkin. He attended Yeshiva of Flatbush where met his future co-author Dennis Prager. While at Columbia University, they authored Nine Questions People Ask About Judaism and Why the Jews?: The Reason for Antisemitism.
While at University, Telushkin was an active leader of the Student Struggle for Soviet Jewry. As part of his position, Telushkin visited the Soviet Union where he met with dissidents such as Andrei Sakharov. He was eventually listed by the KGB as an anti-Russian agent.
An Orthodox rabbi by training, Telushkin serves as a spiritual leader of Los Angeles’ Synagogue for the Performing Arts, founded in 1972 by Rabbi Jerome Cutler. He is an associate of the National Jewish Center for Learning and Leadership and a former director of education at the non-denominational Brandeis-Bardin Institute. Telushkin is also a Senior Associate with CLAL, the National Jewish Center for Learning and Leadership, and is a member of the board of directors of the Jewish Book Council. He has been on the Newsweek's list of the 50 most influential Rabbis in America since 1997.
Telushkin is the author of sixteen books on Judaism. His book, Words that Hurt, Words that Heal, inspired Senators Joseph Lieberman’s and Connie Mack’s Senate Resolution #151 to establish a National Speak No Evil Day in the United States, a day in which Americans would go for twenty-four hours without saying anything unkind or unfair about, or to, anyone. His book, Jewish Literacy: The Most Important Things to Know About the Jewish Religion, Its People and Its History, is one of the best-selling books on Judaism of the past two decades. More than two decades after its publication, the book remains a foundation text for Jews, non-Jews, and prospective converts alike. The first volume of A Code of Jewish Ethics, entitled A Code of Jewish Ethics: You Shall be Holy, which Telushkin regards as his major life's work, was published in 2006. The second volume, entitled, A Code of Jewish Ethics: Love Your Neighbor, was released in 2009.
In 2013, Telushkin was invited by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, António Guterres to speak before the commission in Geneva.
In 2014, Telushkin released "Rebbe: The life and teachings of Menachem M. Schneerson, the most influential Rabbi in Modern History" which appeared on all the major best seller lists including New York Times Best Seller list, Wall Street Journal and Publishers Weekly.
Telushkin tours the United States as a lecturer on Jewish topics, and has been named by Talk Magazine as one of the fifty best speakers in the United States. He wrote the episode 'Bar Mitzvah' on Touched by an Angel guest starring Kirk Douglas.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
November 17, 2018
I am somewhat familiar with the author's writing about Jewish legal interpretation [1] and the problem of anti-semitism, but until I read this novel I was unaware the writer also was responsible for a generally entertaining and enjoyable mystery series. But he is. As someone who appreciates mystery novels that include religious elements, this book provided at least the second example of a mystery-solving rabbi that I have read, and it is a book that is one I can warmly recommend to those who appreciate the boundary between justice and mercy and the interaction of faith and contemporary life with people who are deeply flawed and imperfect but also very easy to identify with. This book struck me as very Nathanish, in that its hero was someone who was not a courtier and who was inventive and creative in his interpretations of the Bible and also interested in interfaith communication and debate with others. For some, this mystery is going to seem a bit bookish and arcane in its debating points relating to Jewish law and practice, but for me, this sort of mystery is definitely a good one.
The novel itself has several layers of interconnected issues. A trial of a murderer defended by a very irreligious and immoral Jewish attorney ends in a way that leads the murder victim's father to take justice into his own hands and enforce lex talionis. While the local Jewish community is roiled by this, the lawyer is found dead and the victim's father is viewed as the obvious suspect, especially when the lawyer's blood is found in his car. Rabbi Winter, though, thinks he is innocent, and even if his own life and his synagogue's efforts at constructing a new community center are highly complicated by the negative publicity his rather fierce thoughts on lex talionis receive, he is determined to get to the bottom of the story. Meanwhile, the ex-wife of the lawyer is trying to get a get so that she may remarry a novelist who happens to be writing about a stabbing, and the wife of a mobster tries to escape the retribution she fears is coming as a result of her cheating with the lawyer while her husband was in the slammer. The novel keeps its various complexities going all the way to the end, with a compelling and dramatic twist that allows the rabbi to be triumphant in his understanding of the character of his congregation and provides a chance for both mercy and justice of a sort.
This novel exists on at least three levels. On the surface level, it is a compelling murder mystery with a variety of appealing and well-crafted characters engaged in a complex and richly rewarding plot. In addition, the play deals with some major issues of interest to Jewish law, such as the boundary between traditional interpretations of law and contemporary practice. How, for example, may the fate of women bound to husbands who refuse to release them be improved? The author suggests, through his conservative rabbi protagonist, that pre-marital agreements as part of the marriage contract may help this out, and that seems a reasonable solution, if not a fully moral one. How can the tension between the Jewish requirement for justice and the highly unjust practice of American criminal law be reconciled in a way that does not lead to increased recourse to vigilante justice? This book presents a lot of thoughtful problems both in terms of practice within the story and also in terms of scholarship and midrashic and mishnaic interpretation of the Jewish law, and if there are no easy answers, the questions are worth exploring and the story is enjoyable as well even for those without an interest in halakah.
[1] See, for example:
https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2018...
https://www.ucg.org/world-news-and-pr...
The novel itself has several layers of interconnected issues. A trial of a murderer defended by a very irreligious and immoral Jewish attorney ends in a way that leads the murder victim's father to take justice into his own hands and enforce lex talionis. While the local Jewish community is roiled by this, the lawyer is found dead and the victim's father is viewed as the obvious suspect, especially when the lawyer's blood is found in his car. Rabbi Winter, though, thinks he is innocent, and even if his own life and his synagogue's efforts at constructing a new community center are highly complicated by the negative publicity his rather fierce thoughts on lex talionis receive, he is determined to get to the bottom of the story. Meanwhile, the ex-wife of the lawyer is trying to get a get so that she may remarry a novelist who happens to be writing about a stabbing, and the wife of a mobster tries to escape the retribution she fears is coming as a result of her cheating with the lawyer while her husband was in the slammer. The novel keeps its various complexities going all the way to the end, with a compelling and dramatic twist that allows the rabbi to be triumphant in his understanding of the character of his congregation and provides a chance for both mercy and justice of a sort.
This novel exists on at least three levels. On the surface level, it is a compelling murder mystery with a variety of appealing and well-crafted characters engaged in a complex and richly rewarding plot. In addition, the play deals with some major issues of interest to Jewish law, such as the boundary between traditional interpretations of law and contemporary practice. How, for example, may the fate of women bound to husbands who refuse to release them be improved? The author suggests, through his conservative rabbi protagonist, that pre-marital agreements as part of the marriage contract may help this out, and that seems a reasonable solution, if not a fully moral one. How can the tension between the Jewish requirement for justice and the highly unjust practice of American criminal law be reconciled in a way that does not lead to increased recourse to vigilante justice? This book presents a lot of thoughtful problems both in terms of practice within the story and also in terms of scholarship and midrashic and mishnaic interpretation of the Jewish law, and if there are no easy answers, the questions are worth exploring and the story is enjoyable as well even for those without an interest in halakah.
[1] See, for example:
https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2018...
https://www.ucg.org/world-news-and-pr...
May 23, 2023
I read the Rabbi Daniel Winter mysteries with great speed because I simply couldn't put them down. Author Joseph Telushkin is a brilliant, erudite person who happens also to know how to tell a complex, brain teaser of a story in such a compelling way that you can't put his books down. This book was the most compelling read I've enjoyed in a long time and I highly recommend it.
August 16, 2010
The third and final book in the Rabbi Daniel Winters series. This time the focus is on justice. What is moral? a woman is murdered by her boyfriend. With a good lawyer, the murderer is let off with a brief sentence. Her father, furious, murders the boyfriend. The question - is retaliation ever justified. I just wish he would write more.
July 25, 2016
As I wrote at the time, this was "an easy read, unsophisticated [(in structure/plot] but ethical discussions made for an interesting variation on the detective genre." "The author did a good job describing rituals and explaining terms unfamiliar to most non-Jewish readers."
July 2, 2012
really liked it. Loved the way certain expressions were explained. Rabbi Goldstein lent it to me. read it in 3 days
June 25, 2013
He got caught between writing a detective story and a book on justice. As a book on justice it was worth reading but as a detective story I think it was not so good.
January 14, 2014
Good book, fun mystery
July 15, 2016
interesting mystery
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews