From Odesa, Russian Empire, Kofman learned Esperanto in 1889 and was an early supporter of the language's adoption.

His work appeared in several Esperanto-language magazines and early anthologies, including the Fundamenta Krestomatio [eo].

[10][9][11] The school of thought sought for stylistic freedom,[12] and Carlevalo notes their "relative abundance of pure lyric voices.

[13][14] Several contributions to La Esperantisto and Lingvo Internacia were made under the pseudonym "Amiko" ("Friend"); although initially believed to be from Zamenhof, they were later discovered to be Kofman's works.

[15] In 1896, he planned to publish a collection of poems[4] entitled Voices of People (Voĉoj de Popoloj) in eighteen languages, but it was never released.

[17][16] In an open letter in the magazine Lingvo Internacia, Kofman stated that he hoped to eventually have 35-50 languages.

The hexameter he produced[1] in his translation of the Iliad was criticised by Gaston Waringhien as "unskillful copying", and worse than work by Kálmán Kalocsay.

[27] Ido was introduced by the Delegation for the Adoption of an International Auxiliary Language, and around a tenth of Esperantists would change movement alongside him.

[4] He would later come to support Edgar de Wahl's Interlingue (Occidental),[4] and was author of a later-destroyed manuscript of a Russian-Occidental dictionary.

[28] In 1979, István Szerdahelyi [eo] called Kofman "apparently the only one to have written poetry in three [spoken] constructed languages.