Although many children had no access to formal education before the reforms of the 1870s, religious tradition required that young Jewish boys receive some basic instruction in Hebrew, along with some rote learning of the Bible. This normally took place at a cheder - a private establishment, usually in the teacher's own home. The conditions here could be grim, and the instruction often fierce.

From early in the 19th century, however, social reformers had been coming to recognise the importance of offering elementary schooling to the masses. This, the reformers argued, would take children off the streets, give them a sense of morality, and give them the chance of a stable occupation when they grew up - urgent needs in the crime-ridden cities.

It would take until the 1870s for the reformers' aims to be realised in free elementary education for all, paid from taxes. In the earlier part of the century, it was up to the churches to take the lead in expanding provision in their own schools.

When there was no alternative, Jewish children attended these church schools, though all of them promoted a Christian curriculum to a greater or lesser degree. Those run by the British and Foreign Schools Society (a Nonconformist organisation) were relatively accommodating towards families with a different religious conscience. Others, however, such as those run by the London Missionary Society and the London Society for Promoting Christianity among the Jews, expressly aimed to convert their pupils to Christianity.

The Chief Rabbi, Solomon Hirschell, became so concerned about their activities that, in 1807, he proclaimed that any parents sending their child to a missionary school would forfeit the right to be regarded as Jewish. This was the troubled background against which the JFS was founded in 1817.

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