In this paper, the author deals with the concept of translatability as an index of cross system language and textual compatibility. In particular, it focuses on the translatability of the text Little Tel-Aviv by Nathan Alterman from Hebrew into English. This is a highly complex and satirical journalistic text employing lyrical, biblical, Mishnaic and liturgical language. Focusing on this composition of articles, feuilletons and verbal vignettes, Tobin considers the question of 'translatability' from a Saussurian and structural point of view. His approach to the theoretical and methodological problems of translating this textual "conflation of converging diachronic inter- and intralinguistic systems" from Hebrew to English is linguistic, sociolinguistic and receptive-textual.