Personal trainer works on the Jewish muscles

Those who seek out the services of a personal trainer are usually looking to bulk up their muscles or fit into that size 4 dress tucked away in the back of the closet.

But Nechama Tamler is offering a different kind of personal training. The Jewish kind.

Rather than helping her clients tone their muscles, Tamler is more likely to assist someone with braiding challah or learning the Hebrew alphabet.

Tamler has spent the last seven years working at the S.F.-based Bureau of Jewish Education as its teen program director. The Palo Alto educator is remaining there part-time, as a member of the Family Education Project.

But she also has started this “Jewish personal training” business, becoming a freelance Jewish educator — jewishpersonaltraining.com.

Using the slogan ‘Let My People Know!” Tamler said she envisioned her services for people who may have a child in Jewish day school and find that their child’s Jewish knowledge has surpassed their own.

“Maybe they don’t have the time to take a class themselves, or they’re just embarrassed.”

And unlike a class, Tamler will tailor her instruction to the goals of the individual.

“There are probably two dozen topics that I could rattle off, everything from basic Hebrew literacy to how to make challah to how to make a seder, to koshering your kitchen or figuring out what’s happening in the Middle East.”

And since Tamler has a master’s degree in counseling, she sees herself as sort of a Jewish adviser. If clients want to add to their Jewish knowledge but don’t know how, Tamler can even coach them in figuring out what she wants to learn most.

“With one-on-one tutoring, you can really tease out what they want to do and work with them on that,” she said, as some people need help even figuring out where to begin.

Some questions she can help answer are “What is a literate Jew?” and “What’s on a Jewish bookshelf?” Or “How do I do this Shabbat stuff that feels foreign to me?”

In addition to running her own business, Tamler will continue to work with several institutions as well. One of them is San Francisco’s Congregation Emanu-El, in its Tauber Jewish Studies Program, which is an adult-education program, and the other is the BJE, where she will continue to facilitate the Heart Action program.

Heart Action is a national program that teaches teens about service learning. A number of schools and after-school programs have used the curriculum in the Bay Area, which brings senior citizens and teenagers together, not only for a visit, but numerous times, so they can really establish relationships.

“This program doesn’t just ask a teen to visit the elder once or twice, that would be like a mitzvah day and everyone has those,” said Tamler. “This is a service-learning project, where you study about the thing you’re going to be doing, you do it, and then you reflect on what you learned about it.”

The Heart Action program has taken place at 10 different sites around the Bay Area. The BJE decided to have teens bring their families into the project as well.

“We thought it would enhance the conversation between family members if they do the visit and reflect together because the prevailing cultural myth is that teens and parents don’t want to talk to each other, and if they do, it’s about their curfew, homework, or who they’re hanging out with or what they’re wearing.

“This gives them something meaningful to talk about.”