Hirsh Leon D’or

Hirsh Leon D’or was raised in Vilna; his father, Avraham (Leyb) Leon D’or (1793–1846), who studied at the secular Jewish Polish-language school adjoined to Vilna University, was a maskil and author. Hirsh followed in his father’s footsteps as a polyglot author, writing brivnshteler—a genre of Yiddish instructional and anthological books for letter writing—and multilingual textbooks for Yiddish readers to learn German and French. Hirsh’s brivnshteler was printed a number of times between 1865 and 1893.