Translated literature into Hebrew had a major role in constructing a national literature, conceived as an integral part of a modern secular Hebrew culture in Palestine at the beginning of the 20th century. Hebrew culture was meant to provide traditional Jewish society with an alternative to an identity founded on tradition and a religious heritage. Far from being perceived as an alien transplant, the literature translated into Hebrew was enrolled by political leaders, writers and publishers alike to help create the literary heritage of a society involved in the process of nation-building. This positive relationship with literature in translation can be explained by two principal motivations: one the one hand, the desire to build up a Hebrew-reading audience in Palestine and, on the other hand, the desire to offer this reading public a varied list of titles so as to satisfy all its needs, including in the area of belles-lettres, and more particularly classical literature.