This Memorial Book was written by former residents of Tovste, Ukraine. Some who left the town before the war wrote articles and essays about the rich Jewish life in town: the people, the dreamers, the doers, the ultra-religious, the secular, the Zionists, the socialists…The various institutions in town, the charities and the help societies for the needy.

Prior to World War II, Tłuste (now Tovste, Ukraine) was a flourishing Polish market town with a Jewish presence dating back to the 1700s. Over the next two centuries, Jews came to comprise two-thirds of the population. Tluste is famously associated with the Ba'al Shem Tov, the spiritual founder of Hassidism, who grew up here.

A relatively peaceful co-existence among the Jewish, Ukrainian and Polish communities was disrupted, first by the Soviet occupation of 1939, then by the Nazi German invasion of 1941. During the war years, Tłuste and its vicinity became an important transit point and congregation center for Jews fleeing persecution from other towns and villages. While thousands of Jews perished in the town, particularly in targeted mass killings, many survived in nearby agricultural labor camps and in hiding.

The original Hebrew and Yiddish contributions to Sefer Tłuste shed light on the destruction of the Jewish community, and tell the stories of those who survived it. The 1965 book also documented in rich detail the Jewish way of life in former Tłuste, with its cultural traditions and social institutions. The recent testimony of former residents and survivors complements these precious historical accounts.