Samia and Brenda
Tectonic Leadership at the
Samia and Brenda at the
Holocaust Memorial Center 2014
First Tectonic Leadership Retreat 2011
TECTONIC LEADERSHIP CENTER
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In February 2009, Brenda Naomi Rosenberg, former fashion
executive, an American Jewish peace activist, called her friend
and teacher Debbie Ford, to share her concerns over deteriorating
relationships in the Middle East. Debbie suggested she calls
Samia Moustapha Bahsoun, an American Arab woman, of Lebanese Muslim descent, born in Senegal; “She is a telecom executive,
who shares your passion for change, and creating peace in the Middle East.”
What Ford may not have recognized is that her two students were faced with an ideological barrier, insurmountable to many; Brenda, a
Jewish Zionist, and Samia, pro-Palestinian anti-Zionist. Brenda’s Jewish Zionist identity and inseparable connection to the people and
land of Israel conflicted with Samia’s entrenched belief that Zionism is an expansionist, terrorist ideology and the cause of the conflict.
Underlying the tension, the Holocaust, and their first conversation. Samia, who lost her grand-mother and grand-aunt to Israeli raids on
Southern Lebanon in 1982, asked the question: “Why can’t the Jews give up the Holocaust story and move on?” Brenda, whose Jewish
identity is inseparable from her fear of annihilation, replied: Why would you ask me to give up the Holocaust? Samia: “because of the
pain it has caused and continues to cause the Palestinians and Arabs in the region. Brenda responded: “We need to remember all the
damage of the Holocaust; the death of six million Jews and millions of others by Nazis. We need to remember that almost a million
Arabs became refugees and almost a million Jews became refugees from Arab countries. We must never forget. Samia: “How can we
then use the Holocaust to heal Humanity and prevent future genocides?”
Thirty days later, on Monday April 20th, 2009; Yom Hashoah Holocaust Memorial Day, Brenda and Samia meet in person for the first
time. Filed in Brenda’s briefcase: a name, and a prayer. At the same time in Geneva, at the United Nation’s Conference on Human
Rights, Elie Wiesel, the Nobel peace prize winner and Holocaust survivor is verbally abused, called a “Zion Nazi” and Ahmadinejad, in
the opening speech of the conference, is a sentence short of denying the Holocaust.
On that same morning, in New Jersey, at the middle of a circle of Jews, Israelis, Arabs and Palestinians gathered for an international
peace conference at Monmouth University, Samia, an Arab Muslim woman, lit a candle and began to read the prayer Brenda had
brought with her from Detroit: “As I light this candle, I vow never to forget the lives of the Jewish men, woman, and children who are
symbolized by this flame, who were tortured and brutalized”. Brenda added: “ May we take this time to pray for the Palestinians who lost
their lives, loved ones and to pray for all those who have suffered by the cruel hands of others.
Samia continued: “Each person who perished had a name: Dora Shklyan, age 70 died at Teofipol, in the Ukraine.” In the circle Dora
Shklyan, came alive, her life forever intertwined with Samia’s grandmother Mariam, transcending the fear and the horror of what was,
their memory and fate inspiring Brenda and Samia to create a Tectonic Leadership Center and become an instrument of peace and
evolution for the Middle East and for all Humanity.
