Nahum Gilliat '14
Major(s): Political Science, English
Minor(s): Legal Studies, International and Global Studies
Year of Graduation: 2013
Previous Education: Salanter Akiba of Riverdale
Clubs/Organizations: Brandeis Billiards Club, Brandeis Football Club, AIPAC, BZA
“As free citizens in a political democracy, we have a responsibility to be interested and involved in the affairs of the human community, be it at the local or the global level.” ~Paul Wellstone
Nahum Gilliat was born with a global perspective: though he currently resides in Bronx, New York, he originally hails from London, England. In addition to his inherent talents for “soccer,” his bi-cultural perspective instilled in him a sense of passion and consciousness towards global affairs. In fact, it was Nahum’s interest in international relations that steered him to want to work at the Office of Global Affairs.
At Brandeis, Nahum hopes to major in Political Science and minor in both IGS and Legal Studies. His passion for law is a new-found interest: last summer, Nahum worked on the Hill for his Representative, Eliot L. Engel (D-NY-17). During his internship, he shadowed the foreign affairs adviser; learning about heated foreign affairs issues as well as the complexities of the legislative process.
Nahum hopes to explore his recent law interest and enrich his global interests by studying abroad in he Hague in Spring 2013. The program is perfectly tailored to him: he expects to learn about the International Criminal Court (ICC) as well as take classes on international law.
Alia Goldfarb '13
Major: Theatre Arts (Musical Theatre)
Minor: Peace, Conflict and Coexistence Studies
Year of Graduation: 2013
Home region/country: Basel, Switzerland
Previous Education: Gymnasium Leonhard, Basel, Switzerland
Clubs/Organizations on Campus: B-Deis Records, Undergraduate Theatre Collective, Building Attendant at Spingold Theatre
“I think of myself as a ‘global citizen’ not because I have traveled a lot and seen quite a few things, but because I am sincerely interested and personally invested in global issues and I am constantly working on contributing in positive ways. In my eyes it’s about keeping an open mind and heart, to really hear other people’s opinions, and find a way to communicate across all boundaries.”
Growing up in the Swiss-German part of Switzerland, Alia Goldfarb was exposed to an extremely multicultural and multilingual lifestyle from early on. Firstly, Switzerland has four national languages and being a ‘land of refuge,’ harbors a substantial minority of people with diverse cultural heritage from all over the world seeking asylum. Further, she is a dual citizen (American/Swiss), comes from mixed religious heritage (Jewish/Christian) and has a Half-Brazilian stepsister. For the first ten years of her life, Alia lived in a largely Muslim neighborhood of her city. After elementary school, her family moved to the only Jewish and slightly more upper class area of Basel, giving her a completely new perspective on her lifestyle and surroundings.
Besides these complex circumstances Alia grew up in, her family always enjoyed traveling a lot. Thus she has seen a vast number of countries and cultures throughout the years of summers and short vacations abroad. To top it off, her love of languages has allowed her to study six languages in school and is working on learning a seventh. Being so immersed in this diverse setting, her fascination for cultural complexities, languages and the lives of people from different countries sparked at a young age.
In high school, Alia was always highly interested in humanitarian issues and sought ways to be actively engaged in finding solutions to global concerns. During her third year, she found her passion for women’s rights, specifically women living in third world countries, and immediately begun research in the field. Her work led to an 80 page senior thesis on cultural violence against women and a benefit concert to support educational programs on female genital mutilation, which raised over $10,000. As she moved to the U.S. for college, her passion for women’s rights has remained a part of her life, however her education at Brandeis has expanded her interest global and humanitarian affairs vastly. While it has taught her about many individual problems within the bigger global picture, the biggest lesson she has learned is how many different social and cultural aspects are all linked together inseparably.
Today, Alia studies religious issues, political matters and political/social power abuse, human rights, women’s and gender issues, conflict resolution, education and performing arts. Her goal is to find a way to combine her artistic endeavors with her knowledge of education and conflict resolution to find ways to communicate across boundaries and help individuals and/or communities to build a healthy, independent and fulfilling lifestyle for as many people as possible.
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