Telushkin was raised in
Brooklyn,
New York, the son of Solomon and Hellen Telushkin. He attended
Yeshiva of Flatbush, where he met his friend and future co-author for two books,
Dennis Prager, in tenth grade. While at
Columbia University, they studied
Jewish history and authored
Nine Questions People Ask About Judaism and
Why the Jews?: The Reason for Antisemitism. 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 served until its closure in December 2022 as Rabbi of the
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 and is a member of the board of directors of the
Jewish Book Council. He has been on the
Newsweek list of the 50 most influential rabbis in America since 1997. Telushkin is the author of 16 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 US, a day for 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 was one of the best-selling books on
Judaism of the 1990s and early 2000s. 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: You Shall Be Holy, which Telushkin regards as his major life's work, was published in 2006. It won the
National Jewish Book Award for Jewish Book of the Year. The second volume,
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, which appeared on the bestseller lists of
New York Times Best Seller list,
Wall Street Journal, and
Publishers Weekly. Telushkin tours the United States as a lecturer on Jewish topics, and he has been named by
Talk Magazine as one of the 50 best speakers in the United States. He wrote the episode 'Bar Mitzvah' on
Touched by an Angel, guest-starring
Kirk Douglas. ==Works==