Media Personality, Sex Therapist…and Haganah Fighter? A Tribute to Dr. Ruth Westheimer (1928-2024)

By Randy Pinsky

While mostly known for her infectious smile and frank conversations on topics of intimacy, few know that Dr. Ruth Westheimer was also a fierce defender of Israel. As a Holocaust survivor saved by Kindertransport, “she openly discusse[d] the scars left by her past, along with the joys of sudden fame” (excerpt from her autobiography All in a Lifetime), with Israel as a common central theme. Beyond her widely popular radio show “Sexually Speaking” launched in 1980, there was more to her celebrity status than might be assumed.

Karola Ruth Siegel was born in Frankfort, Germany in 1928 to a loving and caring Orthodox Jewish family, who, she admitted, spoiled her as the only child. A particularly special memory was biking to synagogue with her father every Friday evening, splurging on ice cream right before sundown.

Although there were warnings of a looming crisis against the Jewish community, few believed anything could happen as they had been central members of German society for centuries.

Everything changed on November 9, 1938; Kristallnacht, the Night of the Broken Glass.

Violent mobs went on a rampage against Jewish businesses, burning synagogues and attacking individuals. Throughout her whole life, she would refuse to use the German term to refer to that terrifying time, stating the word ‘crystal’ misleadingly gave the impression of something beautiful and pure, where this was anything but.

Ten-year old Karola remembers the night the Nazis came for her father. As he left, she recalled him giving her a brave smile and promising he would be back.

As was the case for many Jewish children, Karola’s family made the ultimate sacrifice to send her to neutral Switzerland via Kindertransport for her safety. Saying goodbye to her mother and grandmother at the train station, she had a premonition that this would be the last time she would see them- she would lose her entire family in the Shoah.

Karola recalled being on the train surrounded by crying children. In a leadership fashion which would lend itself well as a teacher and in the army, she led them in song for collective courage and support.

As an orphan, Karola lived in a boarding house where life was difficult and the children never felt welcomed. Since girls were only provided training to be housekeepers and received little education, she taught herself mathematics and history through studying her boyfriend’s schoolbooks late into the night. It was from meeting shlichim (emissaries) from Youth Aliyah speaking about returning to the ancient Jewish homeland that she found her passion.

“[Since] age 10 in Switzerland, I was an ardent Zionist- I have been saying since then that Jews need a country of their own. If there was a State (then), things would have been different,” Karola related in a Friends of the Israel Defense Forces talk in 2020.

At age 16, she joined the very first ship leaving for pre-state Israel. While she worked on a variety of kibbutzim as a farmer and later as a kindergarten teacher for newcomers from Yemen, she would find her true fit in the Haganah underground paramilitary unit.

At a diminutive 4’7”, Karola (now Ruth to sound more Israeli) was ideally suited as a runner and roof surveyor as she did not attract much attention. She would also be found to be a keen marksman with exceptional aim (in her heavy German accent, she would exclaim, “for some reason I cannot explain, I was a very good shot!”). In her 90s, she would boast how she could still take apart a rifle and reassemble it with her eyes closed.

In a 2022 interview in “My Life as an Israeli '' hosted by the Center for Israel Studies at American University she shared, “I thought I’d be a farmer [in Israel] all my life, and look at me- I've become Dr. Ruth!”  

Her time in Israel was marked by a number of definitive moments - her 20^th birthday in 1948 would be forever seared in her mind when a Jordanian mortar shell crashed into the Beit Halootzot girls residence in Jerusalem, killing two girls next to her and causing her to almost lose both legs. She was fortunate to be treated by a highly skilled surgeon at Hadassah Hospital and sufficiently recovered from her injuries to become a black diamond skier.

Ruth recalls dancing the whole night the day Israel was officially declared a state. She joked she liked Ben Gurion as he was short like her (“he wouldn’t have met me [though], a little kibbutznik from Nahalal (northern Israel),” cheerilly adding, “I wasn’t ‘Dr. Ruth’ back then.”)

She would receive her doctorate from the United States and launched her popular radio and tv shows, candidly discussing what were usually taboo topics about intimacy.

According to the World Jewish Congress, “She was proud of her Jewish heritage and embodied the spirit of Jewish resilience”. She also was a firm believer in women’s role in the military. In her 1990 opinion piece “Women Know How to Fight” published in The New York Times, Westheimer drew on her own experience in the Haganah; “I can be as tough as the next guy - and if you don't believe me, just ask anyone I've gone up against.”

Her life story was also featured as an animated short for Holocaust education called “Ruth: A Little Girl’s Big Journey” produced in 2020 by the USC Shoah Foundation, along with Delirio Films and Neko Productions.

In 2020, she received an honorary doctorate from Ben Gurion University of the Negev, launching the Dr. Ruth K. Westheimer Endowed Scholarship for Psychology.

Despite all the historical trauma and suffering experienced by the Jewish community, she maintained, “we have never permitted that hatred to determine who we are or what we stand for…we never forgot that we were called upon by our tradition to repair the world by transforming hatred into love.”

The spunky media personality (and apparent crackshot) Dr. Ruth Westheimer, known for her chutzpah and directness, left an indelible impression on many. “Small in stature but immense in heart, Dr. Ruth's wisdom, wit, originality and legacy will continue to inspire us all.”