Ruth Westheimer, better known as Dr. Ruth, is a sex therapist who has written 45 books and for decades has delivered advice on television, radio, and the web. Her fascinating and tumultuous past led to a career that has been recognized with inductions into the Women in Technology International Hall of Fame, the German-American Hall of Fame, and the Radio Hall of Fame. She has also received multiple honorary doctorates.
Westheimer was born Karola Ruth Siegel on June 4, 1928, in Frankfurt, Germany, the only child of privileged Orthodox Jewish parents until the Nazis came to power in 1933. Her father was taken by the Schutzstaffel, the SS, and her family fled Germany. She was sent to a school in Switzerland for orphaned refugees and never saw her family again, learning later that they had been executed at Auschwitz.
Looking back, Westheimer doesn’t consider herself a Holocaust survivor because she never endured the pain of living in a concentration camp. “I call myself an orphan of the Holocaust,” she said.
After the war, at 16, she moved to Israel and changed her first name to Ruth. She joined the Haganah, an underground Jewish paramilitary group, and trained as a lookout and a sniper. “I’ve never killed anybody. But I was badly wounded on both legs,” she said to ABC News, referring to a bomb explosion outside the kibbutz where she lived during the Palestine War, which began in 1947 and ended two years later. The explosion happened on her 20th birthday and nearly resulted in amputation.
Westheimer came to the United States in 1956 and, after receiving her doctorate, worked for Planned Parenthood, training women to teach sex education. That work drove her to continue studying human sexuality.
Her media career began in 1980 with her radio show “Sexually Speaking,” which was nationally syndicated and launched her career. Ultimately, known as Dr. Ruth, Westheimer became a household name. She is credited for revolutionizing the discussion of sex and sexuality on radio and television. Westheimer currently lives in the Washington Heights area of New York City and continues to teach, lecture, and write books.