I came into Tirza Teitelbaum’s life seven decades after it began. Her childhood and teenage years in Iraq belonged to the far side of another century. Her galvanizing years in the infant state of Israel, where she co-founded a kibbutz, stretched back more than fifty years ago. Even the decades she spent in New York City working and raising her children were already well over by the time I met Tirza Teitelbaum. The woman I met in St. Paul, Minnesota was soft-spoken, composed, with lovely liquid eyes and a smile that more than hinted at her sense of fun and delight in the world.

She loved music, which is what brought us together. Tirza sang in many languages. Arabic, Hebrew, French, to name a few. It was the family pastime. Tirza took pleasure in telling me about how beautifully her sisters sang and about her father’s voice. She admired musical talent in others, no matter what their background. To sing was to be at home with Tirza. An afternoon or evening in her apartment always included a little or a lot of it.

Tirza carried herself with dignity—always. Her speaking voice was soft but commanding. She spoke her mind. If something bothered her, she addressed it. Tirza’s singing voice commanded attention too. She sang with confidence in that marvelous, guttural mizrahi style. After Tirza became sick with cancer the first time, she reported to me with great annoyance that she wasn’t singing well. That was a low blow from her illness because singing meant so much to her. Like most outstanding singers of folk music, she never sang a song exactly the same way twice. I learned many Iraqi Jewish songs from her. I soon discovered that if I was foolish enough to notate the music, I had better leave plenty of room for variants on the melody. She altered the tune and ornaments and even the words, according to that day’s thought.

Tirza was generous in so many ways. Many, many musicians received her tutelage. She held nothing back, including her corrections if the singer made an avoidable mistake. It was the teacher in her. I was very amused just two months ago when Tirza attended the Sephardic model seder at the St. Paul Jewish Community Center. Internationally praised Iraqi-Israeli artist Yair Dalal led the event. Dalal was describing an Iraqi song he had just sung. The words he used were a little non-specific. Tirza called out a better translation. He laughed and acknowledged that Tirza’s description was the right one.

Tirza was generous with more than her love of music. She cooked marvelous meals. If you praised a dish, she wanted to tell you exactly how she had made it so you could make it at home. Often she asked me to come into the kitchen so she could show me what she had done—how much cardamom to use—or to show me how much food she had made. There was never any danger of a guest leaving hungry.

I also noticed when I visited her at home she was frequently knitting. She made countless blankets, which she gave away or which were sold for charity. Her participation in the St. Paul JCC’s charitable gift shop, By Hand and Heart, gave her immense satisfaction. Tirza gave me the bright-colored kipa I’m wearing today—turquoise and gold. You’ll forgive me for wearing those colors at a funeral. I have worn it nearly every week since Tirza gave it to me, because it reminds me of her bright spirit and can-do approach. That approach carried Tirza through a life that was not unfamiliar with challenges. She received life without bitterness, as she put it, and created good will wherever she could.

Tirza was a born teacher. In fact, that was her training and her love. In Israel she worked with children who were especially challenging. She relished telling stories of troubled children who found new confidence or respect under her guidance.

Tirza was proud of what she had accomplished in her life, not the least of which was raising her two children, Orna and Chaim. She spoke of them and their accomplishments with pride and in great detail. As proud as Tirza was in the accomplishments of her family, I came to understand a deeper force field in her life. Tirza had an immense capacity to love. Chaim and Orna were the recipients of their mother’s intensely focused love as were their children, Sam and Maggie and Eli and Dina, each of whom received their savta’s unbridled love and enthusiasm. To hear Tirza converse with her grandchildren was a master class in how to put love into the world. She spoke of her children’s spouses, Amy and Richard, as if they were her own children—which is to say, with the deepest love and respect. Her relationship with her sister Margarete was amazing.In Tirza’s memoir, From the Tigris to the Mississippi: My Road to Maturity, she described that relationship as “one soul in two bodies.”

Tirza did not confine her love to her immediate family. Her many friends and students (of all ages) basked in the bright sunshine of her love. When she was particularly happy with something she saw or experienced, she said with a smile and an extra lift of the heart, “I love it.” Even though Tirza has now passed on, the warmth of that love is with all of us for the rest of our days. Thank you to Chaim and Orna and Margarete for sharing their mother and sister with the rest of us.