Immigrant of the Day: Dr. Ruth

Ruth Westheimer (born on June 4, 1928) is a popular American sex therapist and author best known as Dr. Ruth.

Westheimer was born in Frankfurt, Germany. In January 1939, when she was ten years old, she was sent without her parents to Switzerland. In 1945, she learned that her parents had perished in the Holocaust, most likely at the Auschwitz concentration camp. Westheimer immigrated to the British Mandate of Palestine where she joined the Haganah in Jerusalem. In 1950, she moved to France, where she studied and taught psychology at the University of Paris.

In 1956, Westheimer immigrated to New York City, where she earned a master’s in sociology and an Ed.D. from Teachers College, Columbia University. She completed post-doctoral work in human sexuality at New York-Presbyterian Hospital.

Westheimer is multilingual, speaking English, German, French and Hebrew. Besides regularly appearing on radio and television, Westheimer has written several books on human sexuality including Dr. Ruth’s Encyclopedia of Sex and Sex For Dummies. She has taught at Princeton and NYU. Westheimer has been married three times. Her third marriage, to Manfred Westheimer, lasted until his death in 1997. She has two children and several grandchildren.

KJ