David specializes in the history of Jews in early modern and modern Europe, especially cultural and legal history.  He is currently writing a dissertation on struggles over Jewish legal jurisdiction in Hamburg, Germany, in the eighteenth century, which aims to describe how internal Jewish communal pressures as well as international political machinations contributed to the decline of one of the most well established rabbinic courts in Europe.

David earned an M.Phil. (2005) and M.A. (2003) in history from Columbia and a B.A. magna cum laude and with honors, also in history, from Brown University (2001).

For 2007-2008 he was named a fellow at the Center for Jewish History in New York and the National Foundation for Jewish Culture. He is also a past recipient of the the Andrew W. Mellon Fellowship in Humanistic Studies (2002-3).

David completed research at the Hamburger Staatsarchiv in Hamburg and the Landesarchiv Schleswig-Holstein in Schleswig in 2007 and at the Central Archives for the History of the Jewish People in Jerusalem in 2006.

He also completed an internship in Berlin in the German Social Democratic Party's parliamentary division and studied for two years at the Har Etzion Academy in Israel.