Around 1800, the Jewish school system in Hamburg consisted of at least 39 so-called cheders (Hebrew: "rooms"), religious schools in a teacher's apartment, each containing one class. Education in the cheder consisted almost exclusively of Hebrew instruction through memorization of the Torah. The "Israelite Poor School of the Talmud Torah," founded in 1805 in the Neustadt, was intended to give access to this strictly religious education to as many Jewish boys as possible. Tuition was free of charge, and the children also received meals and, if necessary, clothing at the school.   Reforms in the curriculum were not intended. The founding fathers saw the promise of integration through an enlightened, comprehensive education less as an opportunity than as a threat to law-abiding Jewish life. This changed from 1822 under the leadership of Chief Rabbi Isaak Bernays, who combined Jewish traditions with a modern educational system. Secular subjects, especially German, were introduced into the curriculum. Under the leadership of Anschel Stern [see ÜO 13], this reform course was continued, so that in 1870 the Talmud Torah School was recognized as a "Höhere Bürgerschule" (later "Realschule").   After several moves in the Neustadt, a new building next to the Bornplatz Synagogue was inaugurated in 1911. More than 800 children were taught here by over 30 teachers as late as the mid-1930s, before the school had to be evacuated and sold to the city of Hamburg in 1939. Hundreds of students and many teachers were deported and murdered starting in 1941. The school itself also served as a gathering place before the transports.   After 1945, the building was used by the university, among others. In 1981, the Department of Culture had the inscription "Talmud Torah Secondary School 1911-1939" affixed to the facade. In 2004, it was returned to the Jewish community in Hamburg. Today's Joseph Carlebach-Bildungshaus includes an all-day school with a secondary school, a daycare center and a preschool. In 2020, students passed their final exams here for the first time since 1942.

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