Joyce Iskowitz Rosenthal Gaffney

Who shall find a valiant woman? She is worth far more than jewels: Advantage and not hurt she brings all the days of her life: She does her work with eager spirit: She holds out her hand to the poor and opens her arms to the needy: She is clothed in strength and dignity, and can laugh at the days to come: When she opens her mouth she does so wisely; on her tongue is kindly instruction. Those who know her sing her praises: Many women have done admirable things, but you surpass them all: Give her of the fruit of her hands, and let her works praise her at the city gates! ~~~~~

Born in Brooklyn in 1929, as second of three children, after her brother Arthur and before her sister Nancie, to Russian immigrant parents Nathan Iskowitz and Ida Epstein, Joyce grew up iin the culture of the apparel industry, where her father worked. At 17, she secured a job at Maidenform in New Jersey, and was quickly selected by the head of the design department to serve as model for the basic shape of Maidenform bras for the next several years. “Just think!” she exclaimed; “all the women in America are wearing me!”

In 1951 she married Murray Rosenthal and gave birth to her first three children, Marsha, Neil, and Charles. In 1963 the family drove to California and settled in the Bay Area. Noting the availability of free higher education in California (then!), Joyce enrolled in Contra Costa Junior College, earning her AA there and transferring to San Francisco State, where she completed her BA degree in a double major of Sociology and Urban Planning.

Her husband Murray died several years later.

Joyce found the love of her life in compose/conductor Juan Pedro Gaffney. They married in 1973, beginning a partnership that would have a far-reaching impact on San Francisco’s cultural history.

In 1975, Juan Pedro founded the Coro Hispano de San Francisco, a community-based performing ensemble dedicated principally to the choral and vocal music of Latin America. Comprised mostly of Spanish-speaking inhabitants of San Franciscso’s Mission District, the Coro served as an educational outreach to many who had music in their hearts but little or no prior musicmaking background.

It soon became a widely-esteemed platform for its major but hitherto unexplored repertory, drawn from two sources: folk-originate music from all corners of the Spanish-speaking World, and the immense legacy of Latin America’s choral music, embracing more than four centuries of creative output by Iberoamerica’s composers. As a result, the young people of the Mission District became the purveyors of their ancestors’ cultural legacy, providing Bay Area audiences with 20th-c. re-premiere performances of music of the Americas from the 16th through 20th century.

Joyce understood the impact of this whole enterprise. At its inception, she worked as general coordinator of all things non-musical: printing scores and parts, organizing recruitment, publicity, audience-building - and making mid-day meals for hungry singers after a twohour rehearsal on Saturday mornings. Coro Hispano’s debut concert in March of 1976 filled Mission Dolores Basilica with an audience of over 500; in large measure, Joyce’s achievement.

In 1980, she and Juan Pedro adopted two more children, Chris and Joy. They spent the next four years raising the children at Stanford, where her husband earned an MA in Early Music and Choral Conducting. On returning to San Francisco in 1984, they reestablished the Coro on a firmer basis, creating the Instituto Pro Música de California. From its inception, Joyce served as Executive Director, taking on all levels of administrative and financial responsibility, and in the process, mentoring several assistants in effective arts management.

In the ensuing five years, Coro performed at an astonishing level: three to five distinct concert repertories per year, each one performed four to six times throughout the entire Bay Area. Coro undertook three tours to Southern California, collaborated with

Revels to bring its repertory to Oakland, Cambridge and Houston, participated in two regional conventions of the American Choral Directors Association, and in three international festivals in Mexico. Joyce organized all that.

For 25 years, Coro’s counter-cultural observance of “The Holidays” - Día de los Reyes, in January, after Christmas and the glut of consumerism that has overtaken it - became a hallmark of San Francisco’s winter arts season, presenting each year a sumptuous feast of music from all parts of the Spanish-speaking World.

Later, in collaboration with the Presidio Trust, Coro established ¡Fandango! - an annual celebration of San Francisco’s Foundation Day, June 29th, with programs of choral, vocal and instrumental songs and dances from the Hispano-Mexican era of California’s history. For twelve years running, every performance was SRO.

It was Joyce’s work that built up both of those local traditions.

~~~~~

At 15, she started smoking. It cost her dearly to break free of it at 44; but had she not, she wouldn’t have made it to 91. Drinking was never really her problem, but she had decided to join The Fellowship, to get past the 5 o’clock martini. So it was through the 12 Steps she was able to get past the cigs; there she got the support of others, and gave support abundantly to countless more. Her gift in giving counsel to others was direct, sometimes blunt, most often spiced with her ahá! sense of humor, but ever with an open and welcoming laugh.

She ran an abundant household. The front door would lead you to the kitchen, where a big pot of soup or the like was always at the ready. At out table, there was always room for you and more. For big occasions, she knew how to expand the recipe without ever losing the flavor. “Meals for millions!” her suegra once exclaimed.

Bigger than her biggest meals was the bigness of her heart. She knew how to listen, offer help without pushing, always with compassion for who you really are.

She became mama all over again in the late ‘90s, when she and Juan Pedro took on the care of granddaughter Leilani, full time. Joyce loves all her children, abundantly.

Joyce’s genius was to look at a problem and see within it the path to its own solution; and then plunge into it and make it happen. Her mother Ida said it best: “If you want to get something done, call Joycie.”

All in our family thank the St. Joseph Health Hospice Services of Santa Rosa for their splendid care through Joyce’s last 3 weeks. And a shout-out to Dr Jason Cunningham and his team at West County Community Health Center, for their loving, long-term health care for Joyce and the family through the last 18 years.

Throughout her whole life, Joyce worked hard for justice and peace in all quarters of the globe, but some causes were closer to her heart than others. If you wish to honor her memory, please consider a donation to B’Tselem USA, btselem.org/donate, or to Doctors Without Borders, doctorswithoutborders.org/ support.

We had planned a Yahrzeit fiesta this weekend for family and friends to join in celebrating her; but Delta, then Omicron said not yet. We hope that by next January, the plague’s tide will subside sufficiently to be able to join with you for real. Meanwhile, from the bosom of Abraham, Joyce is smiling on us all. Her memory is already a blessing.

Praise God!