Upon reaching 90, Isidor “Izzy” Stark gave three tidbits of advice to those who wished to follow his footsteps into ripe old age:
First, don’t get too much sleep. Second, keep busy so you don’t have too much time to think about yourself. And third, be sure to drink enough good scotch and Tanqueray gin.
Stark, a longtime record-shop proprietor with an overwhelming passion for music, was a past president of San Francisco’s B’nai B’rith lodge. He died of cancer Aug. 21 in his Daly City home at age 91.
Describing Stark as “Mr. Concordia-Argonaut,” his daughter, Natalia Rubin, said, “My father was many things. He was a confidant to so many; he was a sage; he was one of the wisest men I knew — on any subject. He had a photographic memory and read voraciously right up to the end.”
Rubin, who lives in Jerusalem, had been staying in the Bay Area for the past several months to care for her father and was with him when he died.
“He said so many times to me in these recent months, ‘I don’t want to say my life has been a success, but it feels like a success. Not because of anything that has to do with money, but because I’m so rich in friends,'” Rubin recalled.
Stark’s friends — and there were legions of them — describe him as a caring and extraordinarily passionate man. He was, perhaps, most passionate about two subjects: politics and music.
A pharmacist in his native New York City, Stark was a lifelong progressive and was active in the pharmacists’ union movement. After coming to San Francisco in 1953, he switched careers; his enthusiasm for classical music eventually led him to the record business. He owned and ran several successful shops in Daly City and San Francisco, retiring in the late 1970s.
“I would say my dad had more in common with Izzy musically than he had with most of his colleagues in the symphony over the years,” said Michael Karasik, a family friend of the Starks whose father, Monia, was formerly a violist for the San Francisco Symphony. “He regarded Izzy as an astute musician. Of course Izzy wasn’t a musician but a passionate music-lover.”
Stark was also an ardent supporter of Jewish causes. In addition to serving B’nai B’rith, he was involved with the Jewish National Fund and the Zionist Organization of America.
After his retirement, Stark became an institution at the Concordia-Argonaut, a predominantly Jewish club founded in the days when Jews were not allowed into other San Francisco clubs. Attending the club almost every day for decades, Stark held court in an upstairs dining room affectionately known as “Izzy’s Café,” discussing art, music and Israeli and American politics with a group of friends.
“He was very provocative, he was brilliant, he had a world of knowledge,” said Bruce Siegel, who met Stark at the Concordia in 1989. “He did not suffer fools lightly. He was a true Renaissance man. He read everything and he remembered everything he read. He liked to take the other side of an argument, and that was Izzy. He was a very, very interesting guy.”
Siegel, who is 58, said Stark had many friends 30 or more years his junior: “That, he told me, kept him young.
“My parents moved out here when they were both dying, and he more or less became my surrogate father after they died,” Siegel added. “He was very, very helpful to me, and that was also Izzy.”
Friends recalled Stark as a true egalitarian.
“He was very concerned with equality. People of all walks of life, whether it was racial, religious or based on economic circumstances, Izzy was very concerned for the underdog,” said Alan Rittenberg, a family friend Stark more or less “adopted” as his godson.
“Probably the hallmark about Izzy more than anything else was that he was always looking out for the underdog.”
Added Siegel: “He was very democratic. He believed there were no differences between people. He was the kind of guy everyone would have liked to have as a grandfather. It was easy to gravitate toward him.”
Isidor “Izzy” Stark is survived by Natalia Rubin, his only child. His wife, Sarah, died more than 30 years ago. Memorial services were held yesterday at the Concordia-Argonaut Club. Donations can be made to the Isidor Stark Fund of the America-Israel Cultural Foundation, 51 E. 42nd St., Suite 400, New York, NY, 10017.