Leopold Immanuel Jacob van Dort was born Jewish between 1714 and 1717 in Dordrecht, Netherlands.
[1] He studied briefly philosophy at the University of Leipzig with professor Johann Friedrich May in 1753.
[1] In 1754[1] he was enlisted by the Dutch East India Company (VOC) to work as a professor of Hebrew Language at the Seminary of Colombo, Ceylon.
[1][3] In 1756 he traveled to Cochin,[1] India, where he was commissioned by Ezekiel Rahabi to finish the translation of the Hebrew New Testament (1741-1756),[4] 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),[4][5] which resides in the Library of Congress in Washington.