Tzedek Tzedek Tirdof: Two Reports, One Standard |
Tzedek tzedek tirdof. “Justice, justice you shall pursue” (Devarim 16:20). The rabbis ask: why is tzedek doubled?
Because the pursuit of justice is not selective. Because justice for the powerful and justice for the powerless are the same justice. Because the means of pursuing justice must themselves be just. Because the doubling is the moral test — and most who claim tzedek fail it by stopping at one.
This week, two reports on sexual violence in this war appeared in the world on the same morning. They tested the doubling. And much of the public response has failed it.
The first was Silenced No More, the work of the Civil Commission on October 7th Crimes by Hamas Against Women and Children. Two years of investigation. More than 430 testimonies. Over 10,000 photographs and video segments. Thirteen documented patterns of sexual and gender-based violence across multiple sites and phases. Victims from fifty-two nationalities. A new legal framework — kinocide, the deliberate weaponization of family bonds — now entering international atrocity law. The report names the survivors who chose to be named: Romi Gonen, Amit Soussana, Ilana Gritzewsky, Rom Braslavski, Darin Komarov. It opens with Komarov’s testimony: “You hear it. It’s right next to you. You hear the screams… and then you hear silence.”
This is what serious documentation looks like. This is what Jewish moral seriousness produces when it refuses denial. Read the report. Say the names. The dead do not narrate; the survivors narrate for them; and we, who heard them, do not unhear.
The second was a New York Times opinion........