Margaret Strauss Berman

Margaret (Strauss) Berman passed away on 10/12/2025 at the age of 103 in Manhattan, surrounded by loving family and caregivers. She is predeceased by her husband, the filmmaker Israel M. Berman, and survived by her 3 children: Charles, Eve, and Anne Berman, her 5 grandchildren: Rachel Roberts, Gregory and Joseph Weil, Casey and Elliot Berman, and great granddaughter: Florence Duncan.

Margaret Strauss was born in Speyer, Germany in 1922, the only child of Jewish parents. She was sent to America alone at age 16 to continue her schooling abroad while the Nazis were in power. Her baggage was a trunk, a bicycle and a cello.

Margaret perfected her English under the tutelage of her foster-father William Milwitzky, a noted linguist. She completed high school in Newark, NJ, and earned her B.S. in Mathematics at Douglas College for Women (now part of Rutgers University) in 1943. During her college years, her parents disappeared. Only later would she learn that they had been murdered in Auschwitz.

After college, Margaret attended the experimental Black Mountain College in North Carolina where in exchange for teaching math to artists, she studied under such notables as Josef Albers. A free spirit, she hitchhiked back and forth from North Carolina to Newark, NJ.

When most men were serving in WW II, she was hired to work in an engineering division at Bell Labs. At the end of the war, she began working as a bacteriologist at Roosevelt Hospital. It was during this period that she met Israel Berman. They married in 1951 and raised three children in a Queens apartment. Money was tight, but it was a household rich in family and culture.

Margaret later earned an MA in Education at Yeshiva University and tried her hand at teaching middle school math, but she ultimately returned to the bacteriology lab at Roosevelt Hospital where she worked until her retirement at age 65.

After being widowed in 1989, Margaret traveled, attended exercise classes daily, and frequented New York's many museums and concert venues. Her passions for chamber music and physical exercise were lifelong. She continued playing the cello in amateur chamber music groups until the age of 98, and maintained a daily exercise routine into her 103rd year. A devoted grandmother, she was her grandchildren's most avid supporter, attending countless concerts and school events.

At the age of 96 in 2018, she moved to Brookdale Battery Park in Manhattan, where residents and staff alike were drawn to her magnetic personality, empathy, and age-defying energy and optimism,

Special thanks to her helpers Laurie and Daniela, who filled her last year with love and care.

Donations may be made in her honor to HIAS (https://hias.org). A celebration of her life will be scheduled at a later date.