BATO, LUDWIG YOMTOV

BATO, LUDWIG YOMTOV (1886–1974), Zionist and writer. Bato was born in Dolní-Kubín in Slovakia (then Hungary) and in 1904 edited the first Zionist publication in Hungarian. While a student in Turin (1906–07), he founded the Piedmontese Zionist Federation. Returning to Hungary in 1908, he joined the editorial board of the Zionist newspaper Zsidó szemle. In 1910 he went to Vienna, where he lived until 1933. There he was one of the leaders of the Austrian Zionist Federation and from 1914 to 1918 edited its organ Juedische Zeitung. With O. abeles he published the literary almanac Juedischer Nationalkalender (6 vols., 1916–22). Between 1933 and 1940 Bato was director of the Jewish National Fund in Romania and in 1940 he settled in Tel Aviv. Bato wrote Die Juden im alten Wien (1928) and Don Yosef Nasi (Heb., 1942). -BIBLIOGRAPHY: MB (Feb. 11, 1966). (Getzel Kressel)