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Talmud Torah (, lit. 'Study of the Torah') schools were created in the Jewish world, both Ashkenazic and Sephardic, as a form of religious school for boys of modest backgrounds, where they were given an elementary education in Hebrew language, the (especially the Torah), and the Talmud (and halakha). This was meant to prepare them for yeshiva or, particularly in the movement's modern form, for Jewish education at a high school level. The Talmud Torah was modeled after the cheder, a traditional form of schooling whose essential elements it incorporated, with changes appropriate to its public form rather than the cheder's private financing through less formal or institutionalized mechanisms, including tuition fees and donations.
In the United States, the term Talmud Torah refers to the afternoon program for boys and girls after attending public school. This form of Jewish education was prevalent from the mid–19th century through "the 1940s and 1950s." Although by the 1980s full-time Jewish day schools (yeshivas) were the norm in the United States, some European countries still had these.
Only married men were engaged as teachers, but there is a difference of opinion regarding the qualification of the melammed (teacher). Rabbah bar Nahmani preferred one who taught his pupils much, even though somewhat carelessly, while Rav Dimi of Nehardea preferred one who taught his pupils little, but that correctly, as an error in reading once adopted is hard to correct (ib.). It is, of course, assumed that both qualifications were rarely to be found in one person.
The teaching in the Talmud Torah consumed the whole day, and in the winter months a few hours of the night besides. Teaching was suspended in the afternoon of Friday, and in the afternoon of the day preceding a holy day. On and holy days no new lessons were assigned; but the work of the previous week was reviewed on Shabbat afternoons by the child's parent or guardian (Shulḥan 'Aruk, Yoreh De'ah, 245).
In later times, possibly influenced by the Christian parochial schools of the thirteenth century, the reading of the prayers and benedictions and the teaching of the principles of the Jewish faith were included. In almost every community an organization called Hevra Talmud Torah was formed, whose duty was to create a fund and provide means for the support of public schools, and to control all teachers and pupils.
Asher ben Jehiel (1250–1328) ruled to allow withdrawals from the funds of the Talmud Torah for the purpose of meeting the annual tax collected by the local governor, since otherwise great hardships would fall upon the poor, who were liable to be stripped of all their belongings if they failed in the prompt payment of their taxes (Responsa, rule vi., § 2). On the other hand, money from the general charity fund was at times employed to support the Talmud Torah, and donations for a synagogue or cemetery were similarly used (ib. rule xiii., §§ 5,14).
Because Talmudic and Torah education was traditionally deemed obligatory for males and not females, Talmud Torahs were traditionally single-sex institutions. It is common even in the present day for men to continue their full-time Torah studies well into their third decade of life while women marry.
The Talmud Torah organization in Rome included eight societies in 1554, and was reconstituted August 13, 1617 (Rieger, "Gesch. der Juden in Rom," p. 316, Berlin, 1895). Later, certain synagogues assumed the name "Talmud Torah," as in the case of one at Fes, Morocco in 1603 (Ankava, "Kerem Ḥemed," ii. 78, Leghorn, 1869) and one at Cairo. This was probably because the school was held in or adjoined the synagogue.
Samuel de Medina (1505–1589) ruled that in case of a legacy left by will to a Talmud Torah and guaranteed by the testator's brother, the latter was not held liable if the property had been consumed owing to the prolonged illness of the deceased (Responsa, Ḥoshen Mishpaṭ, No. 357). A legacy for the support of a yeshivah and Talmud Torah in a certain town, if accompanied by a provision that it may be managed "as the son of the testator may see fit," may be transferred, it was declared, to a yeshivah elsewhere (ib. Oraḥ Ḥayyim, i., No. 60; see also "Paḥad Yiẓḥaḳ," s.v., p. 43a).
Solomon b. Abraham ha-Kohen (sixteenth century) decided that it requires the unanimous consent of the eight trustees of a Talmud Torah to engage teachers where a resolution has been passed that "no trustee or trustees shall engage the service of a Melamed without the consent of the whole" (Responsa, ii., No. 89, ed. Venice, 1592).
As a specimen of the medieval organization of these schools that of the Cracow schools may be selected. From the congregational record ( pinḳes) of Cracow in 1551 it appears that the Talmud Torah society controlled both private and public schools. It passed the following taḳḳanot, or Jewish legal writs:
(1) The members shall have general supervision over the teachers and shall visit the Talmud Torah every week to see that the pupils are properly taught.
(2) No melamed may teach the Pentateuch except with the translation "Be'er Mosheh" (Judæo-German transl. by Moses b. Issachar, Prague, 1605), "which is in our vernacular"; for the advanced pupils he shall use no other than the Rashi commentary.
(3) A melamed in the primary class shall teach not more than twenty-five pupils and shall have two assistants.
(4) One melamed shall not compete with another during the term of his engagement, and shall not seek to obtain a pupil in charge of another teacher, even at the expiration of the term, unless the father or the guardian of the pupil desires to make a change.
(5) The members of the Ḥebra Talmud Torah shall hire a competent and God-fearing melamed, with an assistant, for poor and orphaned boys at the Beth midrash.
(6) The melamed and assistant shall teach pupils the Hebrew alphabet (with the vowels), the Siddur, the Pentateuch (with the "Be'er Mosheh" translation), the Rashi commentary, the order of the prayers, etiquette, and good behavior—every boy according to his grade and intelligence; also reading and writing in the vernacular. The more advanced shall be taught Hebrew grammar and arithmetic; those of the highest grade shall study Talmud with Rashi and Tosafot.
(7) Boys near the age of thirteen shall learn the regulations regarding tefillin.
(8) At the age of fourteen a boy who is incapable of learning Talmud shall be taught a trade or become a servant in a household.
The Ashkenazi Jews Talmud Torah and Etz Chaim Yeshiva, with 35 teachers and over 1,000 pupils, succeeded the school established by Judah HeHasid. It was started with a fund contributed by Hirsch Wolf Fischbein and David Janover in 1860. The annual expenditure was in 1910 about $10,000, over half of which was collected in the United States. At Jaffa the Talmud Torah and yeshiva Sha'are Torah was organized in 1886 by N. H. Lewi, with 9 teachers and 9 classes for 102 boys. Its expenses were about $2,000 yearly, mostly covered by donations from abroad.
Girls in the United States at this time were often educated at public schools together with boys, and they received their Jewish education through programs at synagogues and Sunday schools, because Jewish day schools were less common. As a result, the "New World" Talmud Torah of the first half of the 20th century was coeducational.
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