40 Under 40: David Hoffman
David Hoffman, 34, is the Southeast Associate Regional Director for the ADL.
ADL’s Southeast Associate Regional Director David Hoffman was born in Los Angeles and grew up in Dallas. He attended college in New York City at List College, the joint program between Columbia University and the Jewish Theological Seminary of America, earning degrees in American studies and Bible.
After teaching in New York’s public schools and working as a full-time educator at Central Synagogue, he earned master’s degrees in education and Jewish studies, and Hebrew and Judaic studies from New York University.
He was the BBYO director at the MJCCA from 2013 to 2018. Hoffman also has taught high school students at The Temple in Atlanta since 2014. He staffed BBYO’s delegation of the International March of the Living in 2017, an experience that inspired him to do more to fight hate and led him to his first involvement with ADL.
“When we did that march from Auschwitz to Birkenau on Yom HaShoah, I heard shofars blowing and it resonated deeply with me,” Hoffman said. “I saw someone blowing on a shofar and I asked if I could play it. To be able to blow the shofar in sight of the gates of Auschwitz really hit me in my core.”
In his current role, Hoffman oversees Words to Action, ADL’s educational program for recognizing and responding to anti-Semitism; the regional response to hate incidents; the International Affairs Committee; campus affairs, and he will be facilitating the Glass Leadership Institute, a yearlong young adult leadership program of which he is an alum.
“I came here not knowing more than two people from college and a couple of family friends. One of the things that has inspired me most in Atlanta is the diversity of opportunities for Jewish experience.”
Aside from the social justice causes that brought him to ADL in January 2018, Hoffman is passionate about music and nature, and can be found throughout the metro area at concerts, hiking and playing multiple musical instruments.
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