Two Princeton University seniors who are active in Jewish life on and off the campus have been chosen to receive one of the highest undergraduate honors at the university, the 2007 Daniel M. Sachs Class of 1960 Graduating Scholarship.

Named for a former Princeton graduate and Rhodes Scholar who died of cancer, the Sachs Scholarship was established in 1970 to provide a graduating senior — this year, for the first time, two graduating seniors — with the opportunity to study, work, or travel abroad.

In the fall, Joshua Goldsmith of Sarasota, Fla., will use his scholarship to pursue a one-year master’s degree program in teaching French as a foreign language at the Université Marc Bloch in Strasbourg, France. He is currently a candidate for certificates in Judaic studies, teacher preparation, and historical linguistics and language acquisition.

Emily Stolzenberg of Morgantown, WV, a certificate candidate in contemporary European politics and society with a concentration in German cultural studies, plans to use her Sachs Scholarship to study the history of political thought at Oxford University in England.

“I’m thrilled,” Goldsmith said during a recent telephone interview. “It’s a tremendous vote of confidence in what I hope to do. And it’s a very exciting opportunity to go to Europe.”

What Goldsmith hopes to do is to parlay his proficiency in eight languages — including Hebrew, Arabic, French, German, and Spanish — into a multifaceted career that will allow him to become a foreign language teacher, a trainer of foreign language teachers, the administrator of foreign language instruction in a university or secondary school district, and, ultimately, a school director.

At Princeton, Goldsmith occasionally attends programs and services at the Center for Jewish Life. Off campus, he has spent the past three years teaching Hebrew, Judaica, and music to students in kindergarten through the seventh grade at String of Pearls Congregation in Princeton.

Since 2004, he has served as adviser to the Central New Jersey Reconstructionist Youth Group, a social and social-action group he founded for teens. It draws from three Reconstructionist congregations in the region — String of Pearls, Congregation Kehilat Shalom in Belle Mead (formerly the JCC of Belle Mead), and Temple B’nai Abraham in Bordentown.

Goldsmith has already had a taste of studying abroad. Last year, he spent the spring semester at the University of Haifa in Israel, studying Hebrew, Arabic, and linguistics.

“One of the great things is that I lived with Arab and Israeli roommates,” he said, “so I really got a much more layered perspective on the conflict.”

As Goldsmith looks forward to pursuing his studies in France, he is particularly looking forward to learning the European style of teaching languages, which is much different from methods used in the United States, he said.

“It’s a truly rewarding chance to complement the language-teaching skills I’ve thus far acquired,” he said. “One reason I’m particularly excited is that I love to go to cities that have a multicultural linguistic community.”

Stolzenberg described herself as “euphoric” at the prospect of pursuing a master’s degree in political theory at Oxford.

“It’s the opportunity of a lifetime,” she said in a telephone interview. “I would never have had the chance to study at Oxford otherwise.”

A life member of Hadassah, Stolzenberg spent her first year at Princeton serving on the freshman class council at the CJL. During that time, she helped organize two alternate spring breaks for her Jewish peers at Princeton. The first trip was to Montevideo, Uruguay, where participants volunteered in the Jewish community and helped build a playground for disadvantaged children. The second trip was to her hometown in West Virginia to work for Habitat for Humanity and to interact with members of her home congregation, the Tree of Life Synagogue.

“The idea was to go where we were needed, but also to go to a place where there was Jewish community and to experience Jewish life in a small town in the South — the kind of Jewish life a lot of students aren’t really exposed to,” she said.

As for the future, Stolzenberg is keeping her options open. She may work for a nonprofit, teach, or go to law school in preparation for working to promote civil liberties and immigrant rights. She is also keeping an open mind, especially with regard to any expectations about her upcoming year at Oxford.

“If you have expectations of an experience, you might miss something wonderful,” Stolzenberg said. “The best part of doing something new and going abroad is being surprised.”