Larchmonter David Noah Earns Soros Fellowship

by Judy Silberstein

(March 6, 2008) David Noah, who graduated from Mamaroneck High School in 1998 and whose mother lives in Larchmont, is among thirty finalists in the 11th annual competition for the Paul & Daisy Soros Fellowships for New Americans. According to a release, the finalists were selected by panels composed of “new Americans” from nearly 700 applicants representing 141 national origins.

In his application, David recounted that he was born in Boston. His mother, Suad Vojdany Noah, however was born in Basra, leaving with her family for Iran when “Iraq became unfriendly for Jews” and then to the United States for college. “Before she could return, the entire family was displaced, scattered across Europe and the United States,” David wrote. She is now a clinical psychologist with a private practice. David’s father, Aris Noah, is Greek, and his parents were partisans who fought the Nazi occupation. In the US since 1966, he is a former philosophy professor and now works as a financial analyst in New York.

David is in his second year at Yale Law School, having graduated from the University of Chicago in 2003, where he earned a BA in History with honors and was elected to Phi Beta Kappa. He also has an MA in teaching from Pace University, where he completed two years with the New York City Teaching Fellows program.

After teaching for a few years in a Brooklyn middle school, David found, “for most of my kids, ‘freedom’ had a very limited meaning, because the only route to a better life was education, and they weren’t getting enough of it.” That experience led him to aspire to “change the way we educate our children.”

At Yale, he has managed to maintain his focus on improving education. He started a non-profit organization , College Acceptance, which pairs New Haven high school students with Yale mentors to help them through the college admissions process. His program is now operating with almost 100 volunteers.

David was persuaded to enter law as a better route to school reform than a Ph.D in education. The fellowship will allow him to leave law school without burdensome loans that might otherwise constrain his career choices.

As a Paul and Daisy Soros fellow, David Noah will be in good company. There are 293 fellows from the past ten years. Among them are numerous undergraduate and graduate students along with authors of 43 books, three composers, six Supreme Court clerks, and twelve faculty members at nine universities. The fellowship covers his expenses for the rest of his legal education.

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