Talmud Torah (Hebrew: תלמוד תורה, 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, the scriptures (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.