Am Oved was founded in 1942 by Berl Katznelson, who was its first Editor in Chief. It was created as an organ of the Histadrut, Israel's federation of Labor, with a goal of publishing books that would "meet the spiritual needs of the working public." Today Am Oved seeks "to enrich the cultural experience of readers of Hebrew from all walks of life with high-quality, widely-appealing books in a great variety of genres".[1]