ROMANO, MARCO

ROMANO, MARCO (1872–1942), Bulgarian Zionist leader and lawyer. Born in Plovdiv (Philippopolis), he participated in the first Zionist convention in Plovdiv (1898) and contested the Alliance Israélite Universelle\>\> concerning the Jewish national character of schools. The controversy resulted in the dismissal of teachers and their replacement by Hebrew teachers. Romano was the representative of Bulgaria's Jews at the Zionist Congresses, even when he lived in Italy. He established and edited the official Zionist weekly in Bulgaria, Shofar, which existed intermittently until 1940. In 1927 and 1938, Romano wrote several essays on the political problems of Zionism, Arab-Jewish relations, and the Mandatory government in Palestine (in French). He settled in Palestine in 1937. -BIBLIOGRAPHY: A. Romano et al., Yahadut Bulgaryah (1967), 613 and index. (Getzel Kressel)