Form, postcard

The Brick Lane Talmud Torah, also known as the London Hebrew Talmud Torah opened at 59 Brick Lane in 1895. The school was in a building adjoining Spitalfields Great Synagogue located on the corner of Brick Lane and Fournier Street. The synagogue was primarily used by the Jewish orthodox society the Machzike Hadath or 'Keepers of the Faith', the majority of members having origins in Lithuania.
Solomon Bleehen (1901-1972), referred to on the postcard was the Headmaster at the school for many years. Born in London he also worked as a cattle shochet, an expert in Kosher slaughter, or shechita. He succeeded his Father Rabbi Israel Bleehen as headmaster who had been born in Lithuania and became a British citizen in 1906 when living in Stepney.
The Talmud Torah taught Hebrew and Jewish culture to Jewish boys and also provided clothing and boots to regular attendees. This included Bill Belmont who recalled 'All we did was read in chorus right through the Torah, with no translation and for myself at least, no knowledge of what we were intoning, and the result was an indescribable babble which lasted the whole hour.'
Bishopsgate Institute, London Collection Pamphlets, 592/4 L26.24i p. 14 (Bill Belmont)
Other local residents remembered hearing Hebrew chanting from the school on a Sunday morning as the church bells of Christchurch Spitalfields rang out to call the Christian community to worship.