Rating: 
Summary: Chutzpah is right!!!
Review: Dershowitz has balls all right... still trying to absolve himself from the liberal insanity of defending OJ, he pontificates and trys to justify the defense of his daughter's assaulter\potential rapist. Everyone is entitled to a equal defense, and Dershowitz's try's to illustrate this by defending an octegenarian Harvard scholar accused of murdering a Nazi War criminal. Prandus the Nazi war criminal had murdered the professor's family during WWI. The only mind sicker in this tomb than the Nazi Prandus is the author. A word of mental health to Mr. Dershowitz stop writing looking for absolution and go speak to a rabbi.
Rating: 
Summary: All bark and no bite
Review: I was driven to read this book by all the publicity it garnered in Lithuania. Dershowitz chose to target the country because he felt that it was dragging its heels when it came to prosecuting suspected Nazi war criminals. The most high profile case was that of Aleksandras Liliekis, who had been residing in the United States before being forced to face extradition for his alledged role in the Holocaust. Given the attention this book garnered, I expected to read something substantive on the case against Liliekis. Instead, what Dershowitz has presented is a highly subjective work that bears very little resemblance to the actual case. Dershowitz chose to explore the psychological aspects of revenge through his protagonist, Max Menchen, who survived the shootings that took place outside Kaunas. Menchen managed to track down the Lithuanian SS officer who killed his family, including his baby son, and then set out to exact his revenge, supposedly based on the principles of Maimonides. We are constantly reminded of the level of scholarship of Menchen, the narrator (one assumes Dershowitz) and the young woman who helped Menchen exact his revenge. But the level of scholarship in this novel is minimal. Lithuanian names are improperly transcribed. What little history of the Holocaust in Lithuania that Dershowitz provides is poorly rendered, and the Lithuanian-American lodge in this novel is portrayed as a den of war criminals rehashing their days in the Nazi special services in Lithuania. I expected more out of Dershowitz. Just Revenge amounts to little more than a standard courtroom pot-boiler that boils down to almost nothing in the end.
Rating: 
Summary: Incredibly Complelling
Review: This is one of the most gripping Holocaust books I've ever read. My maternal grandfather lost seven siblings during the Holocaust, and it's important that the world should never forget what happened. Aside from being informative, I found Just Revenge to be entertaining. I finished it in two nights. This is a great book, go out and buy it.
Rating: 
Summary: Its not THAT bad...
Review: I am not jewish so I can not comment on whether the jewish traditions Dershowitz makes reference to in the book is correct or incorrect. Yes, the way Ringel talks to his daughter is very, very, very sickening. And well, the ending is not believable and is way too sweet and stupid. but overall I liked the book. the book was a very fast read and was hard to put down. I think Dershowitz writes very well and definitely has the gift of keeping the reader interested. I would recommend the book as a fast, light, feel good read.
Rating:
Summary: Poor Writing Makes It Impossible to Enjoy
Review: When I read the back of this novel, I was intrigued by the story and looked forward to reading it. I tried to enjoy this novel, but the poor writing and unrealistic characters made it impossible to recommend to anyone. I can see how some people can overlook the poor quality for the unusual story, but I found it difficult to ignore.
Rating:
Summary: gripping Holocaust legal drama treats issue of revenge
Review: Alan Dershowitz has once again established himself as one of our society's most able legal minds with his compelling novel, Just Revenge. This talmudic treatment of the themes of Holocaust memory, personal revenge, legal retribution and the age-old conflict between legality and morality has the ring of truth, and I feel that readers will be richly rewarded as they read this very fast-paced, stimulating novel. I have only one reservation which inhibited me from giving the highest rating to the novel; it is written in a "potboiler" type of fashion, and the style is not as sophisticated as other novelists of the Holocaust. I may be doing Mr. Dershowitz a disservice, however, as I also presume that he wrote this novel for a wide-audience. The novel comes, altogether, with a high recommendation. The greatest strength of Just Revenge is its serious treatment of one of the central questions of the Holocaust: How can we (as individuals and as a society) continue to ignore the reality that perpetrators of the most heinous genocide in history have escaped punishment, and worse yet, live gracious lives? An even more troubling question looms for Holocaust survivors who, as Mr. Dershowitz explains, suffered a complete breakdown of the social contract -- government not only failed to protect their famillies but also refused to punish those who committed mass murder. How can these survivors translate the need for social condemnation and punishment (retribution) with the personal need for righting wrongs (revenge)? These extremely important questions find generous philosophical as well as legal treatment in Just Revenge. Mr. Dershowitz's alter-ego, the remarkably talented Abe Ringel, leads us through a kidnapping and murder trial in which Holocaust survivor Max Menuchen relives his past and comes to grips with a confrontation with the murderer of his family. The characters are not as fully rendered as I would have liked, but Mr. Dershowitz did not intend for his characters to overwhelm ideas.
Rating:
Summary: Gag
Review: The first thing this author needs to do is learn the proper use of the words "who" and "whom". I also found it distracting that the college-student daughter calls her father "Daddy" and that he constantly refers to her as "sweetie". Gag me. I agree with the reviewer who stated that this is Judaism at its worst. I have read many wonderful and moving books with Judaism as their focus. This was not one of them.
Rating:
Summary: Morality vs. Legality
Review: This is definitely a page-turner! I was stuck on the couch for five hours reading this straight through. (Okay, so I am a slow reader!) Still, the twists and turns, mind games as well as eye-openers keeps the reader turning the page wanting to know what happens next. From the get go, we want to know if Max Menuchen is capable of murdering an innocent child for revenge. Revenge for the killing of his family 50 years earlier by the child's grandfather. The government says that it will take time to build a case. You don't have time, but you have a plan. A plan that involves "killing" his family as he did yours. Here is the beauty of the story. What you see is not always what actually happens. If only that were so years ago when what Max had to face WAS REAL. And real for many families of different backgrounds that were killed. Of course, we come in with the religious angle of whether the revenge is "porportional" to the "eye for an eye" debate. Max had no intention of going crazy on the world and killing for the sake of killing. It came naturally to hime to believe that I could do to his family exactly what he did to mine. He had to believe that all men were capable of doing what he did. That's how he lived with himself. Had he been a just man, he might have understood that I could never do what he did --- though I actually came close to doing it. He was not a just man. He did not think like a just man." Again, the idea of morality vs. legality. Is it morally alright to kill while during times of war? Isn't it true that many of the same doctorines survive today as they were preached in the days of the Holocaust? Is hatred genetic or is it taught? There are so many fascinating debates and twists in this book a person just never knows what is going to pop up. But as the layers of the truth are uncovered, more heart-wrenching truths need to be faced. And the never ending circle of hatred needs to be halted. These characters are good decent people fighting for truth and justice which are often seen as unreachable these days. Still, I have to love Max for HOW he went about achieving his end without going beyond what was truly "porportional" revenge. My heart had to smile at the conclusion because there really WASN'T a conclusion as much as a beginning. Now, if the rest of world could learn a lesson from Abe, Max and Paul (and others like them), maybe there might be a chance that this idea of "ethnic cleansing" only reduces are best resources for the future. Nobody wants to admit that every walking creature is God's child and doing harm to children is the worse evil ever.
Rating:
Summary: excellent work
Review: truly a great work of fiction based on true happenings!. A.D. brings forth, to those of us less informed of the holocaust,how these horrible events could have and probably did effect those who had first hand knowledge. Just when you think you have it figured out, he does a 180 degree switch. Great Book deserves reading
Rating:
Summary: A ridiculous story and distorted Judaism.
Review: This book is so bereft of any value that despite my having a library of thousands of volumes, I had to throw out my copy of Just Revenge, as I saw no justification for keeping it, and there is no age group or anyone at all that I'd recommend it to. The story is absurd, and placed within the context of a heavily distorted Judaism, and supposedly Jewishly observant family, where father condones housing daughter and lover, and where a "great professor" of Jewish philosophy is mouthing statements that are repeatedly ridiculous. The only thing that became clearer to me is why the author's children want out of Judaism. This book has no value AT ALL.
| 
