Ruth Westheimer
Dr. Ruth Westheimer (also known as Dr. Ruth) was born Karola Ruth Siegel on June 4, 1928, in Frankfurt, Germany. She is a popular American sex therapist and author.
Since her family was Jewish, Westheimer was sent without her parents to Switzerland when she was ten years old and spent World War II there. Her parents both perished in the Holocaust, and after the war, she joined the Haganah in Jerusalem. Notwithstanding her height (smaller than 5') she was trained as a sniper and was wounded in action by a bomb during the 1948 Arab-Israeli War. She subsequently studied psychology at the Sorbonne University where she also taught. She emigrated to the United States in 1956 and attended Columbia University, where she earned her Master's in sociology and a PhD in education. She completed post-doctoral work in human sexuality at New York-Presbyterian Hospital.
Her pioneering show Sexually Speaking aired for the first time in 1980 as a 15-minute taped show. The show has increased in popularity since then and is now broadcast over the entire United States. Its format is noted as being candid, humorous, and respectful.
Westheimer has written a number of books on human sexuality, including Dr. Ruth's Encyclopedia of Sex. She has also worked as a lecturer and a professor at New York University and taught a seminar on sex recently at Yale University. She currently has a nationally-syndicated television show and a nationally-syndicated radio show. She is multlingual -- speaking English, German, French and Hebrew.
She was married to Manfred Westheimer until his death in 1997, and has two children and numerous grandchildren.
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