Dora Betts graduated in 2025 from the Pardee School of Global Studies with a B.A. in International Relations and a Jewish Studies minor. Over the past four years, she has been an involved member of the community at the Elie Wiesel Center, the Center on Forced Displacement, and the Global Development Policy Center. In the future, she hopes to work in Jewish organizing full-time.
Dora has taken advantage of the opportunity to get involved in many Boston University programs. She worked as a research assistant for the Global Development Policy Center, where she tracked loans between China and other countries in order to analyze the relationship between global finance and indigenous peoples/the environment. Last year, Dora went to Serbia as part of the Center on Forced Displacement’s summer program. For the first week, she took classes at the University of Belgrade, and for the second week, she assisted displaced Ukrainian and Romani families with cultural activities and distributing clothing and hygiene kits. Seeing the Romani settlements was “life-changing” for her, especially because of the disparity between the “really awful” conditions and the “really nice apartment complexes” less than a mile away.
During the fall 2024 semester, Dora took a class with Prof. Noora Lori, where they worked on a website called Urban Refuge, which maps social services for refugees in the greater Boston area. Dora worked in the “careers” section and connected with different organizations in Boston, to let them know about the program so that people seeking work can connect to potential jobs. The Urban Refuge App won an award from the Association of Professional Schools of International Affairs, and it continues to move forward.
In addition to her extracurricular activities, Dora has taken many classes at the Elie Wiesel Center. Among her favorites was the Israel-Palestine Conflict course, as Ingrid Anderson “did a really good job with presenting the class with historical documents and having [the students] make [their] own opinions based on those.” She also appreciated Dotan Greenvald’s “great lectures” in Antisemitism After the Holocaust, and that he was “open and honest about his identity as an Israeli and how it impacts his viewpoints.” Dora particularly enjoyed the Holocaust Seminar with Steve Katz and the chance “to be connected with Elie Wiesel in that way, since [Prof. Katz] worked closely with him.” As Dora’s grandmother was a Holocaust survivor, it was a special opportunity to connect with her own history.
Dora’s thesis was entitled A Polarized Diaspora: American Jews and Israel after Oct. 7 and examined how American Jews’ relationships to Israel changed after October 7. She focused on three case studies: the American Council of Judaism, Birthright, and Jewish Voice for Peace. Her advisor was Jeremy Menchik, the director of the Institute on Culture, Religion, and World Affairs. Dora says that the thesis was “really personal for both of [them],” especially as Jews who are trying to figure out their Jewish identity while supporting the safety of Palestinians, and so it “affirmed a lot of pieces of [her] identity” that she was questioning before.
As she moves into post-graduation life, Dora hopes to work in Jewish organizing full-time, particularly advocating for collective liberation where both Palestinian and Israeli people can be safe. She’s currently taking a class called Don’t Kvetch, Organize through the Jewish Organizing Institute and Network. After 3 summer intensive programs in Russian, which were “helpful with studying Jewish diasporic culture,” she plans to learn Yiddish to further connect with her Jewish identity. She also spends time junk journaling, scrapbooking, and attending queer events around the city. The courses at the Elie Wiesel Center gave her a “good foundation for learning about [her] Jewish identity,” and she hopes that the Center continues to expand programs about the history and critiques of Zionism, the Palestinian perspective, and the history of Jewish diasporic life in the future. She looks forward to applying the Jewish values of justice, compassion, and world-repair to American Jewish organizing.