Jill's remarks at Joe's Celebration of Life, Deer Park Villa, Fairfax, California, March 29, 2026

A Life Well Lived – A Meditation on Joe

For those of you who were not at the unveiling yesterday, I first want to share some unexpected sad news. Joe’s brother, Mike Feldman, and my sister Janet’s husband, our brother-in-law, Mike Brisson, both passed away during the last couple of days. This is and remains a celebration of Joe’s life – but I also want to honor and celebrate Mike Feldman and Mike Brisson. Many of our relatives and Midwest friends knew and loved Mike Feldman, and many of my relatives and friends also knew and loved Mike Brisson. We cherish those memories, and we pay our respects to both Mikes, as we celebrate Joe.

And there is so much to celebrate, for a life well lived. A man who brought a smile to people’s faces just by showing up. A man who would play with children – his children, other people’s children- for the joy of seeing them laugh. He would juggle, put on voices and accents, imitate animals, sing songs to amuse, to convey affection. He warbled “Beautiful Soup, so rich and so green,” playing Alice in Wonderland’s Mock Turtle. He crooned “Beautiful Boy” to Josh at his Bar Mitzvah. He howled as Lupo the Wolf Boy in the Monster Show. He sang “In my life” to me at our birthday parties. His friends were amused, and secretly envious, at Joe’s talent for serenading the people he loved.

Joe was a “smell the roses” kind of guy. We attempted few chores, because if it was a choice between doing chores and spending the day on a beautiful walk, or watching a sunset, or sitting by the fire and laughing – there was no choice. Dust bunnies piled up and stacks of papers were unfiled – and Joe was having fun.

My 48 years with Joe is a kaleidoscope of memories. How we met at Camp Tawonga. How I came home with him after camp, knowing he was a great guy. Our time long-distance dating while I finished college. Our San Francisco early years after marriage, where we embarked on our careers and spent weekends going to movies and out to dinner. And then deciding to have kids, and moving to Mill Valley, where we began the most meaningful part of our lives. Long, happy years, raising our boys, maintaining our childhood and college friends, and making new friends. A beautiful life that I didn’t want to end, but that changed despite my most fervent wishes. And yet, and yet, it was all worth it – every minute.

What I miss most is the way he made me feel. Me made me feel smart and funny – and unconditionally loved. I was truly lucky.

Despite all of the turmoil and recent sadness, I keep joy in my heart in my belief that someday, Joe and I will be reunited, and the fun will continue.

Jill's remarks at Joe's gravesite for the unveiling, March 28, 2026

Some sad news to share and some memories of Joe

I first want to share some unexpected sad news. Joe’s brother, Mike Feldman, and my sister Janet’s husband, our brother-in-law, Mike Brisson, both passed away during the last couple of days. This is and remains a celebration of Joe’s life – but I also want to honor and celebrate Mike Feldman and Mike Brisson. Many of our relatives and Iowa friends knew and loved Mike Feldman, and many of my relatives and friends also knew and loved Mike Brisson. We cherish those memories, and we pay our respects to both Mikes, as we celebrate Joe.

As many of you know, Tim Amyx, who is videoing tomorrow’s Ceremony, was also the “go to” videographer when the boys were growing up. He videoed Jake’s Little League team, when Joe co-coached the “Wildcats”. Joe got miked-up, and Tim caught an entire game of Joe coaching the boys. The resulting video was quiescent Joe, capturing his intensity and passion for baseball, his love of the boys, his desire to teach and encourage, his humor and his humanity. I watched the video over and over, remembering how Joe was “that guy” for so many of us.

Joe embodied Lupo the Wolf Boy in the Monster Show, performed with his lifelong friends. He became the legendary “Rabbi Schlemiel Rabinovich” at Passover, using his crazy old Jewish man accent to create a parable that was so funny, and yet so touching. He was the center of attention at his high school and family reunions, where everyone wanted to talk to him, to be touched by him, one more time. The boys and Joe had countless discussions about sports, over breakfast, over dinner, in the car. He treasured his Warriors season tickets because he was passionate about the team, but he also loved treating his friends to a trip to Chase Center. He talked endlessly about kids with disabilities, who he helped by advocating for the education they needed.

He was kindness, humor and love. And I was a bystander and sometimes participant, a witness to it all. I was married to “that guy”, and it was a wonderful ride.

Joseph Feldman Celebration of Life ~ March 29, 2026

Joe and I (Noreen) met in January 2001 in CASE offices, which were then in the basement of an Urban Life Center on Franklin  in SF. Joe and Paul Foreman, a retired lawyer and ex-judge from Pennsylvania, interviewed me by giving me a 2-inch file, allowing me a little time to review it and then asking me what my strategy would be for working with the family on behalf of their child with a disability and the school district involved. They were either very desperate for an advocate --any advocate-- or they liked my responses. They let me know I could start any time. I started with CASE as an advocate in March of 2001.

What I learned about Joe, working with Paul Foreman and him, for many years, was that Joe was a person with an incredible commitment to inclusion. Joe had worked as a resource specialist—now termed an educational specialist. An educational specialist is the teacher and case manager for a child, typically in their classroom or a learning center for whom they have to read a variety of detailed psychoeducational assessment reports, SLP reports, OT reports and consider the child’s needs and areas of deficit. The case manager develops an Individual Education Program going forward a year with goals and services that will allow a child to make measurable educational –academic and social emotional benefit.

Joe shared with me that when he was a teacher, he noticed that the parents of his students really did not understand their rights vis a vis the rules and regulations governing the implementation of special education. He saw an essential need to help parents understand that they had significant legal rights to advocate for their child with a disability. By 1979 he was working, I think out of his garage and living room to form the Community Alliance for Special Education which was created more officially in 1980.A point of reference: In 1975, when the Education for All Handicapped Children Act passed, the government indicated there were at least 1 million disabled children out of school, with others in segregated rooms set up for babysitting.

CASE is a mighty but small nonprofit. One that often hangs on by a thread, with a strong will to serve others and empower and train parents. Thank you for any generosity! It is deeply appreciated. We still use Joe’s CASE pyramid with a foundation in preparation and assessment information. (I have some copies, 22 copies. if you want a little piece of Joe.) CASE’s mission is rooted firmly in Joe’s belief that every student deserves a Free and Appropriate Public Education that meets their individual needs.

Joe was also an advocate, spending hours on the phone with mothers and fathers. Having grown up with parents impacted by polio he had a built-in compassion for the often much harder, messy, complicated, and even broken lives of those who struggle to learn, to read, to walk, to talk, to hear, to see, to self-regulate, to calm, to cooperate, to simply exist as neurodiverse little beings in a society that often seeks to minimize and push these children to adults away -- out of mind.

Joe -and CASE advocates- committed- and still commit- to giving children fuller agency in schools that often put up both structural and emotional barriers and do not know how to reach and teach. Teaching children with any disability means more resources, more time, more funding, just more care.

What I saw in our various offices –what stands out were Joe’s intrinsic qualities of humility, kindness, empathy, humor, and flexibility. Flexibility as long as operational design went his way. Flexibility as long as we advocated strongly. He always had our advocates’ backs. There were times we needed him to have our backs, advocates have to get feisty. Special education involves a lot of gatekeeping and strength to break through to a solid IEP.

If we as advocates had done what was ours to do and the child was still not in an appropriate placement, their services stalled in the laden bureaucracy of public education, Joe, as Director of CASE, would make a call and referral to an attorney, who would work either pro bono or on a sliding scale. Attorneys may not have appreciated his calls, given lesser income, but they did often respond to pleas to take on our clients.

A few more salient memories of Joe:

Joe was the force behind the Special Education Rights and Responsibility Manual. The Education Code, IDEA, in parent-friendly question and answer format.

Advocates always appreciated his love of the Beatles and Dylan. We looked forward to staff meetings with Joe in his Beatle’s T-shirts.

Before our work moved towards electronic online, records keeping— we marveled at Joe for being sort-of-a-hoarder. The CASE offices had large institutional type file cabinets filled with row upon row of student records dating back to 1980. Joe did not believe in shredding records. He so valued the client and the work done that I think there was an emotional -spiritual bond to these files. Joe thought someone might do research and write a book.

I will close with a story about an African-American woman, over in West Contra Costa Unified School District. Joe was an advocate for this woman’s grown son, impacted by Autism, but able to get through high school and find a job. As a young man with autism, he fathered a child. He was raising the little girl, with his mother’s help. The little girl was diagnosed young with autism; she was adorable and cognitively impaired, yet, involved with her church community, choir and dance. She was a little bit chunky, but performed ballet, The grandmother called Joe for advocacy and I was assigned. Whenever I would show up for the girl’s IEPs, near Thanksgiving, the grandmother would entertain me with stories of Joe advocating for her son. She may have embellished some, because there was a mention of a Volkswagen van and hippie attire. The grandmother always arrived with gratitude expressed with sometimes balloons, but always 2 boxes of See’s Candies, one for Joe and one for me.

When Joe left CASE to struggle through treatments, this grandmother continued to show up with candy for both of us. I called Joe to try to deliver his box of chocolates. The last time he was hospitalized, Jill answered. His body unable to regulate, she was supporting him with all her care and love. Joe talked with me and told me to keep and share the candy with my family. Today, I wish to fulfill this grandmother’s gift by providing Jill, Josh, and Jake a few boxes of gratitude for sharing such a dear, sweet man with us.

-Noreen Elizabeth Ringlein, OFS

CASE Special Education Advocate

When I arrived in San Francisco in 1980 as a young, single mom of my daughter, Sascha—who is quadriplegic with a speech disability resulting from cerebral palsy—I struggled to get her the academic support she needed. Eventually, I met other parents, like Pat Hornbecker, and started to be inexorably pulled into the busy, industrious world of parent advocacy. I suddenly found myself drafted onto numerous committees and boards (including CASE, after Pat recruited me), which I was willing to do because I wanted the unexpected turn in my parental journey—ending up in Budapest instead of Paris, as Rich Ardoin described it—to have a larger meaning. At the same time, I was well outside my comfort zone, and during many of the (mind numbing, seemingly endless) meetings that boards and committees require, I often felt at risk of slipping into a stupor. While Joe was a major reason I found myself trapped in these meetings (like when he recruited me for the CASE strategic  planning committee, despite clear evidence my own life was unfolding without any suggestion of an ability to plan), he was also my salvation. When Joe was at the table, I knew we would all work together to make the world a better place (yada, yada), but that we would also have FUN doing it. Joe, with the twinkle in his eyes and an ever-ready smile (or smirk, depending), would make sure we did the serious work… but not too seriously!  

When I was eventually drafted into the position of director of a nonprofit providing disability education in schools (KIDS Project), I had the privilege of working with Joe as part of a collaborative, Open Gate. Even though I (again!) was in a position I had not sought, and that I wasn't really sure I wanted (especially the endless meetings!), I think back on that time with immense fondness and even nostalgia, and so much of that is down to Joe. Such a kind, decent, supportive person, but also fun... and so funny! (I knew I would never slip into a stupor if Joe was at the table, livening things up with his usual wisecracks.)

Our families also became good friends… attending each other’s housewarmings, weddings, baby showers, birthdays, award ceremonies and other life events, in addition to basketball and baseball games. My husband, Bruce, shares Joe’s passions for music and sports, and we all miss him so much. 

In these last few months, whenever I've talked to a fellow parent traveler about Joe's death, I've learned more about the huge impact he has had on so many children's lives. In our family, Joe is one of the GOAT members of Team Sascha. We had to fight so hard to get Sascha "mainstreamed" (as inclusion was called back in the day), and we owe so much to Joe, a strong, steadfast presence who helped us navigate the system and (eventually!) overcome the barriers. The school district's expectations for Sascha had been absurdly low, and as she blew (well) past all of them, Joe (and Jill) were there to cheer her on, including for the many awards she won over the years for her contributions to the disability and workers' rights movements. Sascha is a UC Berkeley graduate, a former CASE Advisory Board member, served as chair of the State Council on Developmental Disabilities, and is currently a Nancy Pelosi-appointed member of the National Council on Disability, a member of the SF Disability and Aging Services Commission and chair of the CA Dems Disability Caucus, among numerous other pursuits. Last July, when Sascha was honored by the SF Board of Supervisors for all her accomplishments, she gave a special shout-out to Joe for the profound difference he has made in her life.  

Joe lives on in Sascha and in the lives of all the children he has helped. Joe Feldman, forever Team Sascha, we love you.  

Dear Jill, Josh, Jake, Family, and All,

Bob and I are writing to you and thinking of Joe. We're thinking of you and all of the family.

Our thanks to you, Bari, and all involved in sharing the beautiful and meaningful website for Joe/Joseph.

When we heard about the passing of Joe, we were and still are so very, very sad with a pit in our stomachs and a hole in our hearts. Our prayers are with you for strength at this very difficult time.

As you know, we thought the world of Joe/Joseph. He always called me Martha Joy, so I called him Joseph. Bob and I moved to SF from a small town in Texas where he had his audiology internship year and from our home base of Chicago in October, 1979. While the hospital Bob worked at was a wonderful hospital in every way, I worked for the public school system with 100 kids on my caseload. (I’m a speech-language pathologist.) The people working there were nice, but they didn’t have the special training to deliver and provide the services to individuals who had certain special needs.

On to SF and meeting THE Joe/Joseph Feldman and all of you … I can’t remember how I found out about Joe and all that he was doing, but I was so happy and eager to learn about him and the organization he was building to help individuals with special needs. Joe welcomed me in a telephone conversation that was amazing and all I could ask for related to my past experience in Texas. At the time, I thought I was talking to a man in his 60s and bald (both wonderful attributes!). I’m not sure why I had that image, but I did. The age part was probably because he was so knowledgeable with so much experience. The "bald" part, who knows... Of course, I was way off on his age AND hair status. Joe and I always laughed about that, especially as the years went on and we connected at birthday times.

As I got involved with CASE for many years, my knowledge grew in the area of advocacy for individuals with special needs because of Joe. I was and always will be grateful to Joe for sharing all he knew with me, parents, professionals, community members, and more. Joe gave from his heart to all of us and everyone. He had and will always have a huge heart in our minds and in our hearts. He reached out to all and embraced all who reached out to him. Joe made a difference in all of our lives. We are forever grateful and blessed with Joe/Joseph Feldman.

Of course, we were also blessed with the “Wooly Bully Joe”/singer, entertainer, musician, comedian and more! So many fun times together and remembrances. Then, there is the Iowa and “Hawkeye Joe” connection. Then came our family connections with you, Josh, and Jake. Of course, there were all of the friends and CASE connections for which we are grateful, too. Joe was a great "connector." We are blessed with Joseph and with you all always.

I hear Joe’s voice as I write to you. There is always a little laugh/chuckle and a “You know, Martha Joy, …” there. There is always humor and a smile. There is also an informative and caring voice there. There is a loving voice there for everyone. There is a “How are you doing?” voice for all. We are all so blessed with Joseph in our lives and our hearts forever…

Jill, we are blessed with you and your family. You are so caring and loving, too. You and Joe shared your love and smiles with each other as we could all see, and you shared your love and smiles with all of us. Joe always talked proudly of you, Josh and Jake and kept us up on what was happening with you all. Such a beautiful family.

We are in Atlanta now with our daughter, son in-law, granddaughter (who turned one last week) and grandpup, so unfortunately we will not be able to be with you in-person at the Unveiling and the Celebration of Life for Joe/Joseph. We will be with you and all in spirit.

As you can tell by the length of this letter, Marty is like Joe in that they both always had a lot to say. Joe was voluble and always with such useful, insightful, and humorous content. A great spinner of entertaining stories. He also was joyful and positive, a person you want to be around. A great sports fan and don’t forget his love not only for the SF teams, but also his beloved Iowa Hawkeyes. I know how much Joe would have enjoyed celebrating the exciting season of his college’s basketball success this year.

Lastly, as Marty noted above, Joe was such an important leader in the area of special education. The Bay Area is a better place because of Joseph Feldman, a lasting legacy to be sure.

We are in Atlanta now with our daughter, son in-law, granddaughter (who turned one last week) and grandpup, so unfortunately we will not be able to be with you in-person at the Unveiling and the Celebration of Life for Joe/Joseph. We will be with you and all in spirit.

May the memory of Joe/Joseph continue to be for a blessing. Zichrono Le’Vracha.

Our thoughts and prayers are with you all as you and all celebrate Joe/Joseph,

Marty, Bob, Gena, Mikey, Maia, and Rudie💗

I met Joe when I was nineteen. A college student, I worked part-time at a program called Socialization and Normalization – SONO for short, teaching developmentally disabled kids life-skills like how to ride public transportation. Joe supervised me, a green kid, and had a reassuring, big-brother presence. We talked a lot about the Giants, even though the team was in the Johnnie LeMaster doldrums. As a sixty-eight-year-old today, I am grateful to Joe and people like Betty Faber, who started SONO – their work shaped so many of us who followed. In particular, Joe taught me how to advocate.

After graduation, I became a caseworker at Family Service Agency of San Francisco, then a delegate program of the Golden Gate Regional Center. Joe’s office, and the Community Alliance for Special Education, sat one floor up in the Urban Life building on Franklin. Ready to brawl on behalf of families that had developmentally disabled children, I signed up for Joe’s annual training on IEP advocacy, staged in the Urban Life auditorium. Joe taught us not only about special education law, but also a philosophy regarding advocacy: try to resolve disputes at the lowest possible level, but escalate when necessary, two feet planted in the law.

I adopted Joe’s philosophy. Working in different organizations over the years, I always tried to first lobby at the lowest level, working my way up as necessary. It created trust and cooperation. Whether teachers or bureaucrats, this approach assumed a shared commitment to the best interests of children and their families. If conflicts could not be resolved, the law’s hammer lay on the table. Joe’s model influenced many parents, but also many caseworkers, advocates, and teachers who worked within the systems serving families who had children with disabilities.

I loved Joe and am grateful for his role in my life.   

I first met Joe at a CAC (Community Advisory Committee) meeting in San Francisco. I was struggling to navigate the school system as my son, also named Joseph, aged out of his infant program at age 3. I was thrown into the abyss of bureaucracies, medical specialists and legal mumbo jumbo. I had dutifully joined parent support groups trying to learn everything I could. There, I met and retained some lifelong friends. But amidst all this confusion and questioning, there was Joe Feldman (not yet a parent), a shining light of energy, joy and optimism. He radiated empathy and confidence and strength, qualities I envied and desperately needed.

Drawn to this pied piper of sorts, I invited myself into his vision that was CASE (Community Alliance for Special Education) so that I may grow up to be just like him some day. I soaked up everything he taught, and watched CASE grow from a concept brewed in the living room of he and Jill’s Hill St apartment to a well-recognized, non-profit serving families with kids needing special education in the 8 Bay Area Counties. Joe asked me to serve on the Board of Directors for CASE, where I stayed for 13 years. I volunteered as a parent consultant taking calls from families about their kid’s IEPs from my home before working from home was a thing. I recruited my family and friends as supporters of CASE. And I became and continue to be a decent advocate myself, remembering my mentor’s words and lessons and passing them on to others still today. My son is now 45 years old and living in his own apartment with support right here in San Francisco.

I cannot calculate the enormity of the effect Joe’s vision had on so many kids and families and school districts. His vision touched and changed all whom he knew. And there is a special place in every one of our hearts and minds for the difference Joe made with his shining energy and empathy and joy that carried him all through his life. I am forever grateful.

Our first child, Michael, was perfect. Looked like an angel. Surely, he was headed for fame and fortune. Well . . . not so fast. As the story goes, our plane to Paris turned out to be a bus to Budapest. Michael was going to need some very special help. 

We got through the early challenges just fine. But at some point in the early 1980s it was time to face the California education system. Sharon and I were disoriented, lost. How do we operate inside this Special Education labyrinth .  The School District was speaking Greek here in Budapest!  We spoke only English. We needed an interpreter.

Enter Deus ex Machina himself—Joseph Feldman, Executive Director of an agency called Community Alliance for Special Education (CASE). Joe suggested we read CASE’s (most impressive) manual  and attend a CASE workshop, a place where we learned to understand, if not speak, the Greek that is Special Education. The seminar was beyond impressive. Senior folks from the State Dept of Education and local School District bigwigs were there along side CASE attorneys and advocates. I commented to Sharon that we had finally found the heavyweight agency that would help us navigate the rocky shoals here on the special needs coast.  Joe (I think deviously) suggested I drop by CASE’s offices, maybe think about serving on the Board. 

Imagine my surprise when I found out that mighty CASE sported a staff of only 3 full time employees!  What?  How could that be?  Has any other organization ever amplified itself so successfully?  That much overachievement had not been orchestrated since that “loaves and fishes” thing. CASE had the shoe size of an elf but the footprint of Bigfoot himself.  Joe was a miracle worker!

And I stand by my use of “devious” because by the time Joe released me back into the general population I had served 12 years on the CASE board. Where I saw first hand what a dynamic partnership can accomplish. No, not a partnership with me, but one made up of a two very special people . . . Joe and Jill Feldman. Joe worked to do good for those least able to help themselves. And Jill worked for those more than capable of helping themselves but where, unlike Joe, people actually got paid. Behind every miracle worker, there’s . . .well you know the rest.

Our Michael is 44 years old. He is happy and healthy and he reached the pinnacle of his educational potential. OK, maybe he is not in competition with Trump for the Nobel Peace Prize but he owes a lot to a special fellow whose name he cannot even say—one Joseph Feldman (and his enabler, Jill). 

I am sorry that I don’t have any photographs of Joe to share here, but I do have the distinct pleasure of meeting him only a handful of times if my memory serves me correctly, but perhaps only Jill would know otherwise. He immediately impressed me as warm, engaging, and, overall, a genuine mensch. Each time represented my viewing Joe in a different facet of his life. Since all these occurred in the last century, I may be mistaken about some of the details, but this is what I recall:

My then-husband and I had dinner with Joe and Jill, and I was meeting Joe for the first time. They were about to become new parents. I was a newly minted attorney, and had just been hired and fired by a well-known tort attorney. I was encouraged by my husband to describe my experience, since he had initially been flummoxed by my seemingly irrational joyous relief at being terminated. The noted jurist had hired me after a brief interview in which he asked me if I was married, if I intended to get pregnant, and if I knew the difference between a 'tort' and a 'tart.' After less than three weeks as the intake attorney, during which I witnessed amazingly unorthodox office procedures, obvious violations of both Title VII and San Francisco health and sanitation ordinances, worked long into the night, and astonished my spouse with language saltier than a sailor's, I was terminated by the famed juris because as he informed me over the phone: "Well, darlin', you just haven't brought in any good cases." Throughout my recounting, Joe was a rapt and avid audience, and, by its end, he was shaking with laughter and wiping the tears from his face. I realized that I had met a kindred spirit raconteur who was also an appreciative listener. Later that year, we attended Josh’s bris, and I saw in Joe, an incredibly attentive, loving and caring husband thoroughly invested in his role as a new father in this significant chapter of his life. In 1996, Joe and Jill attended my baby daughter’s red egg and ginger party. They were so gracious and supportive to me when I was both apprehensive and excited about my becoming a new and single parent. More than I can say, I was so grateful for them being there for us.

From all I have read and seen here, Joe’s memory is for a blessing, and Jill, Josh, and Jake are beneficiaries of his extraordinary love.