A colorful life: Masterful late teacher Lila Hirsch-Brody to be celebrated at JCC
The program is a chance to say goodbye and celebrate a beloved individual "in a place where she created so much celebration."
Lila Hirsch-Brody, a painter and educator who died July 9, will be feted by students at the Jewish Community Center of Greater Pittsburgh on Sept. 25. The gathering, celebrating Hirsch-Brody’s colorful life, will occur inside the same space where Hirsch-Brody helped countless burgeoning learners become artists.
The sparse room — with just a sink, collapsible tables and movable closets — used to be bursting with zest, Brian Schreiber recalled.
Schreiber, the JCC’s chief external affairs officer, met the late artist and teacher after joining the JCC in 1999 — years after Hirsch-Brody had become a beloved fixture.
“Lila was a larger-than-life character who had the absolute love and support of her students,” Schreiber said.
For decades, in different spaces throughout the JCC, Hirsch-Brody and her adult learners painted together weekly.
“Not only Lila, but her students, brought incredible joy and spirit,” Schreiber said.
Oakland resident Zivi Aviraz, 74, took classes with Hirsch-Brody for nearly 25 years, but knew her for even longer.
The two met shortly after Aviraz came to Pittsburgh from Israel as a shaliach (emissary) at age 28. At the time, Aviraz didn’t know how to paint. She said she approached Hirsch-Brody and asked about learning.
“She said to me, ‘You have to want, and I’ll teach you,’” Aviraz said.
Hirsch-Brody was the type of instructor who would not only “tell you which canvas to buy,” or order the paint and brushes, but someone “who held your hand, told you how to mix the color and which brush to use. She was the best teacher, especially for beginners,” Aviraz added.
Squirrel Hill resident Phil Samson, 67, took art classes in college but said years elapsed before he reentered a formal learning environment like Hirsch-Brody’s. Once he arrived in her studio, however, Samson stayed for 18 years.
“It was an interesting place to be. She was a character,” he said. “It wasn’t just learning how to paint. It was her personality. She was as colorful as her paintings.”
Students in Hirsch-Brody’s studio would spend either a half-day or full-day each week painting together.
Classes followed a 10-week cycle where Hirsch-Brody would paint a piece at home, bring it in, strip it apart and have everyone start from the beginning, Aviraz said. “She taught you every week what the next step would be to get to the completed painting.”
Dressed in bright garb, Hirsch-Brody would make her way from student to student and check each one’s progress.
In other classes, instructors “won’t teach you, they will tell you,” Aviraz said. “Lila was a true teacher.”
Armed with cotton swabs, scrapers or knives, Hirsch-Brody offered repeated instruction.
“She was very good about teaching different techniques and different ways of approaching something,” Samson said.
Time together fostered bonds between students and their teacher, but also between the students themselves.
“It became like a family,” Samson said.
Thanks to Hirsch-Brody, “she created a community of artists,” Schreiber said.
Aviraz became a professional painter whose work has been displayed at galleries in Pittsburgh, West Palm Beach, Florida and New York.
“For me, it was because of Lila,” Aviraz said. “It was not the talent, but the practice and the way she was teaching. The way that whatever you took from her, you continue it. She was the one to teach you, the one to help you, the one to lead you.”
“She just had that ability to get the best out of everybody,” Shadyside resident Joel Kranich said.
Like Aviraz, Kranich went from painting in Hirsch-Brody’s classes to showcasing his own work at various galleries.
The retired architect recalled how Hirsch-Brody and her students would present an art show in the JCC’s Palm Court every summer.
“It was quite the event of the year,” Kranich said. “Lila got to show off all her students and their work. Plus, she always showed off some of her work.”
“Everybody was so proud, and there was just such joy in the hallways,” Schreiber said of the annual event. “It would just draw a tremendous amount of energy.”
Hirsch-Brody channeled that passion back into her students and the wider community.
“She was always saying to the students in her class, ‘I want you to break out of the box,’” Kranich recalled.
The “stratosphere of people” she attracted came from “all walks of life, in and out of Squirrel Hill,” he continued. “She loved to teach people, and she loved people, and she had room for everybody. She had people in that class that could hardly move.” Yet, regardless of a person’s capacity, knowledge or artistic talent, “she always taught them, loved them and helped them, and that was her ability.”
Schreiber recalled when Hirsch-Brody created the Zola Hirsch Special Needs Fund at the JCC.
Established in memory of her late husband, the fund supports the center’s work with the disabilities community.
Whether it was during her time with Pittsburgh 10+, a group of local artists, or through other involvements, “she would always make a push to support this fund,” Schreiber said. “We hope to continue to grow and build that fund over time, because our work with disabilities has grown exponentially.”
In an announcement regarding the Sept. 25 celebration, the Associated Artists of Pittsburgh mentioned the Zola Hirsch Special Needs Fund.
“Lila wasn’t just an ordinary teacher. She was more than that,” Kranich said. “She was that type of person that led the artistic community.”
The Pittsburgh Society of Artists Guild commemorated Hirsch-Brody, its longtime member, on Instagram: “We are saddened by her passing on July 9, 2024 but her passion for the arts lives on.”
Schreiber hopes Hirsch-Brody’s former students and friends will celebrate her life on Sept. 25 at 11 a.m. in the JCC’s Robinson Building.
“She had an incredibly long tenured career at the JCC, because she gave unconditionally to her students and her students gave back to her,” he said. “For those students that loved and cared for her so deeply to gather in a place that they care about so deeply, it’s important to be able to say goodbye and celebrate her many contributions. She was a joyous, happy, vivacious, full of life individual, and that life deserves to be celebrated in a place where she created so much celebration.” PJC
Adam Reinherz can be reached at areinherz@pittsburghjewishchronicle.org.
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