Among researchers and collectors of Yiddish folksongs, Ruth Rubin was unmatched in both her expertise and enthusiasm. Over the course of her career, Rubin collected some 2,000 songs from generations of people who had grown up in a flourishing Yiddish-speaking environment, an environment which was mostly ruined by Nazi annihilation and Stalinist repression. This collection is based on a manuscript that Rubin was unable to publish before her death, with additional annotation and commentary provided throughout by noted music scholars Chana Mlotek and Mark Slobin.