Leon David Hoffman's Obituary
Artist and World War II Navy veteran Leon David Hoffman died at 99 on January 22, 2019 at his home in Highland Beach, Florida.
Hoffman, born in New York on June 21, 1919, was a commercial and fine artist who came out of the Art Students League after graduating from Brooklyn Technical High School and George Washington University.
He went on to create art advertisements for Revlon, Trans World Airlines, and other companies, in addition to his own figurative paintings. He later studied with American impressionist Henry Hensche at the Cape School of Art in Provincetown, MA.
Hoffman served in the South Pacific during World War II and, more than 20 years later, volunteered for Israel during the Six Day War in 1967. He traveled many times to Israel over the years, including a long span when he lived there, making “aliyah” and learning Hebrew.
Hoffman, a natty dresser in his youth among the Greenwich Village, NY, art scene, who sported a black handlebar mustache for much of his life, loved the sheer beauty of many arts – classical music, literature, film, and ballet. He lived optimistically by repeating a mantra daily, “I feel healthier and healthier, happier and happier, every day in every way.”
Born to Samuel and Florence Hoffman, he is survived by his younger sister and her husband, Irene and Leo Spiegel, as well as many nieces and nephews, their children and grandchildren, all of whom always just called him “Unc” as he played central roles in their lives and shared his wisdom with them.
Hoffman was a true Zionist who supported Israel his whole life. Donations may be made in his name to the Jewish National Fund, www.jnf.org/donate-now. Chapel Service Thursday, January 24, 2019 at 12:00 pm at Levitt-Weinstein Blasberg-Rubin-Zilbert Memorial Chapel, 18840 West Dixie Hwy, North Miami Beach, Florida (305) 932-2700
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