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Margot Stern Strom, who founded pioneering Holocaust education program Facing History, dies at 81
(JTA) — Margot Stern Strom, who drew on the pain of her Jewish childhood in the Jim Crow South to create one of the most widely used Holocaust education programs in American schools, died March 28 at her home in Brookline, Massachusetts. She was 81.
The Boston Globe reported the cause as pancreatic cancer.
Strom was a schoolteacher in 1976 when she co-founded Facing History & Ourselves, which drew on draft lessons piloted in her classroom. For three years in the mid-1980s, the U.S. Education Department denied funding for the Holocaust curriculum, in part because of consultants opposed to the curricula and because of right-wing groups, such as Phyllis Schlafly’s Eagle Forum, that objected to the program.
However, due to persistent congressional support for the grants, the program finally broke through in 1989 and began to receive federal funds. During the nearly 40 years Strom spent as head of the nonprofit until her retirement in 2014, its curriculum expanded into classrooms in all 50 states and more than 100 countries.
In recent years, in addition to training thousands of teachers, Facing History brought aging survivors of the Holocaust and other important historic events into hundreds of classrooms to share their stories.
“Margot Strom is a visionary,” former Harvard Law School Dean Martha Minow said when Strom received the 2015 Massachusetts Governor’s Award in the Humanities. “She had a unique idea and she has translated that idea into an organization that has an impact around the world.”
Margot Stern was born Nov. 10, 1941 in Chicago, Illinois to Fan and Lloyd Stern. After the family moved to Memphis, Tennessee, she was exposed to the racism facing Black people and the intolerance that extended to her small Jewish community. “One Jewish cheerleader at a time was the custom on our high school squad,” she recalled, according to a reminiscence by Facing History. “We had Jewish high school sororities and one Jew a year was chosen as an honorary member of a Christian sorority. We all lived by these rules.”
In 1964, Strom earned a bachelor’s degree in history at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. After graduating she became a teacher, starting out in Skokie, Illinois and eventually moving with her husband Terry Strom and their young family to the Boston suburbs, where she taught eighth grade language arts and social studies.
In the spring of 1975, according to Facing History, she and fellow teacher Bill Parsons attended a workshop on the Holocaust and realized how little they taught and how little their students knew about the genocide of Jews during World War II. (Parsons, who would later serve as chief of staff at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, died in 2016.)
They went on to secure interest and funding from local philanthropists and educators to expand her lesson plans into a curriculum used in classrooms around the country.
“As an educator, Margot believed in her students — whether they were in middle school, high school, or if they were teachers themselves — and their capacity to think deeply about history, about the world we live in, and about how our choices shape society,” Facing History said in a statement. “She imbued in them the ability to act as moral philosophers, and apply the lessons they learned in class to the world around them.”
Roger Brooks succeeded Strom as Facing History’s president and CEO on Dec. 1, 2014. “She deeply understood the need for upstander education and used her charismatic leadership skills to impart this import to teachers and students around the world,” he said in a statement, using a word popularized by Facing History to refer to the opposite of “bystander.”
In comments that presaged the current debate over teaching about racism and gender in public schools around the country, Strom once commented on the schoolroom atmosphere she faced when first promoting the Holocaust studies curriculum.
“There was a powerful silence about race and racism and no mention of antisemitism or the Holocaust,” she wrote in a personal history of the organization. “‘Bad history’ was best forgotten. The Civil War was the War Between the States and we were taught how the South won the major battles. In my Tennessee history class I did not learn who lost the Civil War.”
Strom is survived by her son, Adam, the executive director and cofounder of the Boston nonprofit Re-Imagining Migration; daughter, Rachel Fan Stern Strom of Brooklyn; and four grandchildren. Her survivors also include her brother Gerald Stern, who was an attorney with the civil rights division of the U.S. Justice Department under then-Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy, and her sister, Paula Stern of Washington, D.C., who formerly chaired the U.S. International Trade Commission.
Her husband, Terry Strom, a renowned researcher in organ transplant immunology, died in 2018.
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Gaza Water Provider Suspends Services After Hamas Detains Staff Member
Displaced Palestinians run to fill containers with water amid a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas, in Gaza City, Nov. 6, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Mahmoud Issa
A Gaza company that operates water desalination plants serving nearly half of the enclave’s population has stopped operations to protest at the detention by Hamas of one of its staff.
Youssef Yassin, a board member of the Abdul Salam Yassin Company, said the move would affect more than 1 million people who normally receive water from the company.
Over 70 trucks that carry water containers across the enclave have also stopped operations, he added, risking further supply disruption after the pipeline network was badly damaged during the war.
“I know it is catastrophic but protecting our employees is a sacred issue,” Yassin told Reuters.
Yassin said Hamas had given no reason for the arrest late on Monday. Hamas had no immediate comment when contacted by Reuters on Tuesday.
Hamas has been gradually reasserting control in areas of Gaza that Israel has withdrawn from as post-war talks over its future grind on. Foreign powers demand the terrorist group disarm and leave government but have yet to agree who will replace them.
Israel continues to control around half the Gaza Strip.
The move is a rare show of dissent against Hamas, which has run the Palestinian enclave since 2007. Demonstrations briefly erupted in March and April, demanding an end to the war and that Hamas give up power, but fizzled out after a warning that public disorder would not be tolerated.
If the protest by the company persists, it could exacerbate the chronic water crisis in the enclave, which was worsened further by two years of war.
Israel stopped all water and electricity supply to Gaza early in the war but resumed some supplies later.
Most water and sanitation infrastructure has been destroyed and pumps from the aquifer often rely on electricity from small generators, for which fuel is rarely available.
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US Cancels Washington Meetings With Lebanese Army Chief Over Remarks on Israel, Sources Say
Lebanese President Joseph Aoun, Lebanese Prime Minister Nawaf Salam, and members of the Lebanese cabinet meet to discuss efforts to bring all weapons in the country under the control of the state, at the Presidential Palace in Baabda, Lebanon, Aug. 5, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Emilie Madi
The US has canceled meetings in Washington with Lebanese armed forces commander General Rudolf Hachem after objecting to a statement the army issued on Sunday about border tensions with Israel, Lebanese officials familiar with the matter said.
A Lebanese security official told Reuters the cancellations were “sudden and shocking” and prompted Hachem to call off the trip. Hachem had been due to arrive in Washington on Tuesday for meetings on military assistance and border-security cooperation.
The US Embassy in Beirut did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Washington is a key backer of Lebanon’s army, providing support of more than $3 billion over the last two decades in a policy aimed at supporting state institutions in a country where the Iran-backed terrorist group Hezbollah has long held sway.
In Sunday’s statement, the army accused Israel of “insisting on violating Lebanese sovereignty, causing instability, and obstructing the army‘s deployment in the south.”
It condemned the “latest attack” on a UNIFIL peacekeeping patrol and said Israeli actions required “immediate action” from friendly states as they amounted to “a dangerous escalation.”
The Israeli military occupies five posts within Lebanon and frequently carries out airstrikes in the country’s south that it says are targeting Hezbollah terrorists.
Israel and Lebanon agreed to a ceasefire a year ago that required the Lebanese Islamist group not to have any weapons in the south and for Israeli forces to fully withdraw from Lebanon.
Under the terms of the truce brokered by the US and France, Lebanon’s armed forces were to confiscate “all unauthorized arms,” beginning in the area south of the Litani River – the zone closest to Israel.
Hezbollah Secretary General Naim Qassem has said the agreement only applies to the area south of the Litani.
Israel accuses Hezbollah of trying to rearm, while Lebanon’s government accuses Israel of violating the agreement by not withdrawing and continuing to carry out airstrikes.
US Republican Senator Joni Ernst said she was “disappointed” in the Lebanese army‘s position. “[They are] a strategic partner, and, as I discussed with the CHOD [army chief] in August, Israel has given Lebanon a real opportunity to free itself from Iran-backed Hezbollah terrorists.
“Instead of seizing that opportunity and working together to disarm Hezbollah,” Ernst added, “the CHOD is shamefully directing blame at Israel.”
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Eurovision Host Austria Backs Israel’s Participation, Aims to Stage Record Event
Director General of Austria’s ORF, the host broadcaster for the next Eurovision Song Contest, Roland Weissmann attends a news conference in Vienna, Austria, Nov. 18, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Leonhard Foeger
Austrian national broadcaster ORF, which will host next year’s Eurovision Song Contest, said it wants Israel to take part despite several countries’ objections and hopes it can host the biggest event in years despite boycott threats.
Eurovision, an annual feast of pop music and high camp from around Europe and as far afield as Australia, became embroiled in a dispute over the war in Gaza in 2025 and 2024 and was hit by street protests over Israel’s participation.
The national broadcasters of five countries – the Netherlands, Slovenia, Iceland, Ireland, and Spain – have called for Israel to be excluded from the contest over the number of civilians killed during Israel’s war against Hamas.
Those broadcasters have said they will boycott the 70th song contest in Vienna or consider not taking part if Israel does.
“Now is the time for diplomacy,” ORF Director General Roland Weissmann told a press conference when asked about talks ahead of next month’s annual meeting of the European Broadcasting Union (EBU), at which the issue will be discussed and potentially voted on.
The EBU is an alliance of public broadcasters that organizes and co-produces the annual event.
“We have used the time wisely, we have held diplomatic talks behind the scenes, and I am very, very optimistic that we will have a record number of participating broadcasters,” he added.
Austria and Germany are among Israel’s staunchest allies in the European Union, in part due to their historical atonement for the Nazi Holocaust. They hope a US-brokered ceasefire that took effect in Gaza on Oct. 10 will soften opposition to Israel taking part.
Hamas-led terrorists took 251 hostages during the Oct. 7, 2023, attacks on southern Israel and killed another 1,200 people, starting the war in Gaza.
Three countries’ broadcasters are likely to rejoin the song contest next year, organizers said: Romania, Bulgaria, and Moldova. They withdrew over costs. Canada has also been reportedly considering joining, which would make it the Americas’ first participant.
Asked if Canada should join, Weissmann said: “Hurrah, hurrah, Canada! Yes, of course. Everyone is welcome. We are happy to host the world.”