After his doctoral dissertation on the Hebrew-Aramaic component of Modern Judezmo (also known as Judeo-Spanish, Ladino, Spanyol) was accepted in 1980 by the Department of Linguistics,
Columbia University, David M. Bunis joined the Faculty of Humanities of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem as its Judezmo Studies specialist. In 2006 Bunis was appointed full professor in the Hebrew University's Department of Hebrew and Jewish Languages. In addition to his teaching responsibilities, Bunis supervised research projects on Judezmo language and literature supported by academic funding agencies in Israel and abroad. He participated in numerous international conferences on Judezmo and Jewish language research. Bunis has served as an advisor to the Israel Autoridad Nasionala del Ladino (National Authority for Ladino Language and Its Culture), the Israel Ministry of Education (Ladino programs), academic institutes in Israel, the United States, and Europe, and research funding agencies in Israel and abroad. He acted as academic chairman of the Misgav Yerushalayim research center (2006-2009), chairman of the
Samuel Toledano Prize committee (2004), and a member of the
Israel Prize in
Jewish languages selection committee (2013). He is co-editor of
Massorot and a member of the editorial boards of several journals devoted to
linguistics and
Jewish languages. In 2006 David Bunis was awarded the
Yad Ben Zvi Life’s Work Prize for his pioneering contributions to Judezmo Studies. In 2013 he received the
EMET Prize for the Study of Jewish Languages. In 2015 he became an
Académico Correspondiente Extranjero of the
Real Academia Española and in 2018 a member of the
Akademia del Ladino en Israel. Bunis is a descendant of the
Monsohn Family of Jerusalem and a grandson of
Jerusalem-born Rabbi
Menachem Mendel Monsohn. == Selected works ==