Ruth Westheimer
| Ruth Westheimer | |
|---|---|
Westheimer in May 2008
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| Born |
Karola Ruth Siegel June 4, 1928 Wiesenfeld (Karlstadt), Germany |
| Residence | Washington Heights, Manhattan |
| Other names | Dr. Ruth |
| Citizenship | American, German |
| Alma mater |
Ed.D. in Education, Teachers College, Columbia University, 1970 Master of Arts in Sociology, The New School, 1959 |
| Spouse(s) | Manfred "Fred" Westheimer (her 3rd, 1961–1997; his death; 2 children) |
| Website | DrRuth.com |
Ruth Westheimer (born June 4, 1928), better known as Dr. Ruth, is an American sex therapist, media personality, and author. The New York Times described her as a "Sorbonne-trained psychologist who became a kind of cultural icon in the 1980s.… She ushered in the new age of freer, franker talk about sex on radio and television—and was endlessly parodied for her limitless enthusiasm and for having an accent only a psychologist could have."
Westheimer was born Karola Ruth Siegel on June 4, 1928, in Wiesenfeld (near Karlstadt am Main), Germany, the only child of Orthodox Jews Irma (née Hanauer), a housekeeper and Julius Siegel, a notions wholesaler and son of the family in which Irma worked. By her father, she was given an early grounding in Judaism, taking her regularly to the synagogue in Frankfurt, where they lived. In January 1939, she was sent to Switzerland by her mother and grandmother as part of the Kindertransport after her father had been taken by the Nazis. Her safe haven, along with that of some 100 other German-Jewish children, was made possible by Swiss activist Franzisca Goldschmidt (see 2014 event below). In Switzerland, young Karola came of age in an orphanage, and stopped receiving her parents' letters in September 1941. In 1945, Westheimer learned that her parents had been killed in the Holocaust, possibly at the Auschwitz concentration camp.
Westheimer decided to emigrate to British-controlled Mandatory Palestine. There, at 17, she "first had sexual intercourse on a starry night, in a haystack without contraception." She later told The New York Times that "I am not happy about that, but I know much better now and so does everyone who listens to my radio program." Westheimer joined the Haganah in Jerusalem. Because of her diminutive height of 4 ft 7 in (1.40 m), she was trained as a scout and sniper. Westheimer was seriously wounded in action by an exploding shell during the Israeli War of Independence in 1948, and it was several months before she was able to walk again.
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