June 10, 2009

Bethlehem University Alumna Earns Masters Degree from Georgetown

With Highest Honors, She Returns to Teach at Bethlehem University

Raphaela Fischer Mourra (BU ’07), completed her Masters in Journalism from Georgetown University in June 2009, with highest honors! 

Raphaela earned her bachelors degree in English with high honors from Bethlehem University in 2007.  Thanks to the financial support of a generous donor to Bethlehem University, Raphaela successfully enrolled at the prestigious Georgetown University in the United States to pursue her Masters degree.

She will return to Bethlehem University as a faculty member in August 2009 to help develop a journalism program. 

Raphaela, who is married with a young child, was recently profiled in a Georgetown University News feature:

 The short memoir Mourra wrote for class was startling.  Her father, Harry Fischer, was a German doctor who volunteered to come to Palestine and became the first Christian killed during the second Intifada that began in 2000.  Raphaela, her father, her Palestinian mother and siblings dodged bullets during the most intense fighting and hid in a tiny refuge area. But when some neighbors cried for help after their home was bombed, her father ran out to help them and was hit by a rocket.

“ ‘Harry,’ was the last word uttered by my mom before going into complete silence,” Raphaela wrote for the class. “…we understood everything. And everything meant nothing. Nothing was left of him. We became fatherless.”  She ends the essay by talking about her father’s funeral, which was attended by more than 10,000 people.  

We look forward to welcoming home a new Bethlehem University faculty member!

Top: Raphaela at her June 2009 Georgetown graduation
Bottom: Raphaela with her husband and daughter