"The older Yiddish lullabies usually expressed the basic aspiration of the Jewish mother in the Pale, who functioned as wife, parent, and often as provider for the family. In the role of provider lay the deeper meaning of her commitment, which was to help the male members of the family achieve a position of status in the community through their application to the study of the Torah. (...)

The majority of lullabies, however, as the century progressed, were tender and soothing, rendering various motifs in soft, crooning melodies. The most tender cradle songs were created by the mother as she rocked her precious baby to sleep, often calling upon the good angels above to watch over her child and guard it from all evil and misfortunes.

But the working mother, preoccupied and overworked, was not always able to sit quietly at the cradleside. So, others, in the roles of babysitters--a grandmother, an older sister, a neighbor--took her place. On the one hand, they performed the basic function of rocking the baby to sleep, and on the other, they became an outlet for sentiments and experiences of the given babysitter. One chanted a tale, another mourned the loss of an unworthy lover, a third, wearily crooning the cradle rocked to and fro, raised the bogeyman to make the baby fall asleep more quickly. (...)

During the final decade of the nineteenth century, several lullabies of social significance were popular among working men and women."

(From Yiddish Folksongs from the Ruth Rubin Archive, p. 65).