Like many investigative journalists, Hoffman was also an author. His three books, “Project Renewal: Community and Change in Israel” (1986), “The Smoke Screen: Israel, Philanthropy and American Jews ” (1989) and “Gray Dawn: The Jews of Eastern Europe in the Post-Communist Era” (1992) were widely acclaimed.
The last of these, an eyewitness account of the fears, hopes and turmoil among the Jews of the former Soviet satellite states with the fall of Communism, received positive reviews in major publications, including the highly respected New York Times Book Review. Prior to his death, he was working on a new book about the survival of Jewish life in the Ukraine shtetl from which his own family came.
Born in Texas in 1946, Hoffman settled in Jerusalem in 1970 with his wife Ann Lee (Hana). With a bachelor’s degree from Brandeis University and a master’s from New School for Social Research in New York, Hoffman subsequently earned another M.A. in sociology from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, where he also taught at the School for Overseas Students (now the Rothberg International School).
Prior to their marriage, the Hoffmans spent their 1966-67 junior academic year in Israel, where they lived through the drama and aftermath of the Six-Day War. This motivated the couple to make Jerusalem their home.
Hoffman is survived by his wife and their children Ronit, Yoni, Keren, and Shahar Dor.