Leopold Immanuel Jacob van Dort

{{Short description|Translator of an Indian version of the Hebrew New Testament and a Hebrew Quran}}

{{Use dmy dates|date=July 2021}}

{{Use British English|date=July 2021}}

{{Infobox person

| name = Leopold Immanuel Jacob van Dort

| birth_date = {{circa}} 1715

| birth_place = Dordrecht, Netherlands

| death_date = {{death date and age|1761|1715}}

| nationality = Dutch

| alma_mater = University of Leipzig

| occupation = Professor of Hebrew Language

| known_for = Hebrew Quran of the Library of Congress, rabbinical Hebrew New Testament from Cochin

}}

Leopold Immanuel Jacob van Dort (c. 1715–1761) was a Dutch Hebrew professor, responsible for translating an Indian version of the Hebrew New Testament and a Hebrew Quran.

Leopold Immanuel Jacob van Dort was born Jewish between 1714 and 1717 in Dordrecht, Netherlands.{{cite book|title=Leopold Immanuel Jacob van Dort, a learned Jewish-Christian man from Dordrecht|author=van Dort, Mascha|date=June 2021|publisher=Mascha van Dort |isbn=978-9464028386}}{{cite web|url=https://edoc.tips/download/a-historical-appraisal-of-jewish-presence-in-sri-lanka-fiona-kumari_pdf|title=A Historical Appraisal of Jewish Presence in Sri Lanka|first=Fiona Kumari|last=Campbell|publisher=Griffith Law and the School of Human Services, Griffith University|date=2007|page=}} He converted to Catholicism in December 1745 in Aachen. He studied briefly philosophy at the University of Leipzig with professor Johann Friedrich May in 1753. In 1754 he was enlisted by the Dutch East India Company (VOC) to work as a professor of Hebrew Language at the Seminary of Colombo, Ceylon.{{cite journal|journal=The Exploration of the Jewish Antiquities of Cochin on the Malabar Coast|first=Walter J.|last=Fischel|title= Journal of the American Oriental Society|volume=87|number=3|date=July–September 1967|pages=230–248|publisher=American Oriental Society|doi=10.2307/597717 |jstor=597717 |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/597717|url-access=subscription}} In 1756 he traveled to Cochin, India, where he was commissioned by Ezekiel Rahabi to finish the translation of the Hebrew New Testament (1741-1756),{{cite web|title=Commissioner, purpose, translators, copyist and age of the Hebrew New Testament of Cochin and the Quran of the Library of Congress|author1=van Dort, Mascha|author2=Bar-Ilan, Meir|date=2021|url=https://www.researchgate.net/publication/353131337}} which Claudius Buchanan took with him to England and currently resides in the Cambridge University Library. Ezekiel Rahabi also commissioned van Dort as the translator of the Hebrew Quran (1757-1761),{{cite journal|author=Weinstein, Myron M.|date=1972|journal=A Hebrew Quran Manuscript|title=Studies in Bibliography and Booklore|volume=10|number=1/2|pages=19–52 |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/27943437|publisher=Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion|jstor=27943437 }} which resides in the Library of Congress in Washington.{{cite web|title=LC Hebr. Ms 183|url=https://www.loc.gov/rr/amed/hs/HebrewManuscriptsPdf/LC%20Hebr.%20MS%20183.pdf|publisher=Library of Congress}} Van Dort is further known for his 1757 translations of the excerpts of the chronicles of the Jews of Cochin.{{cite book|author=Eichorn, J. E.|title=Allegemeine Biblothek der Biblischen Literatur|volume=1|date=1788|place=Lepzig|page=929}}

Van Dort died in 1761, at the age of 46.