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 addition to his teaching responsibilities, Bunis supervised research projects on Judezmo language and literature supported by academic funding agencies in Israel and abroad.
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 2015 he became an Académico Correspondiente Extranjero of the Real Academia Española and in 2018 a member of the Akademia del Ladino en Israel.