[1][2] His father was a Protestant Pastor from Bremen and his mother is an educator turned sculptor born in East Prussia.

[3] By the early 2000s, he began to teach at Klezmer festivals in Europe and North America, including Yiddish Summer Weimar and KlezKanada.

This group of ethnic Ukrainians preserved Klezmer melodies in their family repertoire dating from past generations; Dawid joined them on clarinet and saxophone and they toured internationally as Konsonans Retro.

[8] The resulting collaboration with Roma musicians from Moldova and elsewhere was called The Other Europeans; Dawid played clarinet in the "Jewish" half of the group.

[14][15] Following the release of the album, Dawid and Yiddish music and dance researcher Avia Moore traveled to visit Gendler in Ukraine in 2012.