Dr. Ruth Westheimer, the sex therapist, media personality and educator, died on July 12 at her home in Manhattan. She was 96. Not only was she a trailblazer in the field of sex and relationship advice and commentary, she was also a Holocaust survivor.
Dr. Westheimer influenced an entire generation of advice columnists. One of many who followed in her footsteps in imparting sex and relationship wisdom to the masses is author and sex-advice columnist Dan Savage, who characterized Westheimer’s legacy succinctly.
“Dr. Ruth — tiny Dr. Ruth — was a giant, not just in the field of sex-and-relationships, but a giant presence in the culture,” Savage told the Journal. “To have gone through everything she did — to have experienced the worst of humanity and to still be able to love so deeply and want the best for her fellow human beings — is profoundly moving. That’s what I will remember when I think of Dr. Ruth.”
Born Karola Ruth Siegel on June 4, 1928, in Frankfurt, Germany, she was the only child of Orthodox Jewish parents, Irma Hanauer and Julius Siegel. Westheimer’s father owned a store and her mother was a homemaker. Julius routinely took his daughter to synagogue, which Westheimer spoke about at length in her testimony with the USC Shoah Foundation.
Westheimer recalled that she grew up in a supportive household and was often spoiled with dolls and roller skates. But in November 1938, when Westheimer was 12, her father was arrested during Kristallnacht and sent to Dachau labor camp. To protect her, Westheimer’s mother and grandmother arranged for her to be sent to Switzerland via the Kindertransport.
In Switzerland, Westheimer lived in Wertheim at an Orthodox Jewish Children’s Home where the living conditions were rough. She was grateful for the shelter and food but found the expectation to be constantly grateful and never complain to be overwhelming. Still, Westheimer prayed, learned Hebrew, kept kosher, and observed Shabbat. Her boyfriend at the time, named Putz (who Westheimer said was still friends with at the time of her Shoah Foundation testimony in 1998) often brought home books. When he’d sleep over, Westheimer would crawl under the staircase to read them.
Westheimer would live there for the next six years. By the time the war had ended, her parents were murdered, as were her grandparents at the Theresienstadt Ghetto. “When we realized that the war was over, I remember what I wrote in the diary that ‘the canons have stopped, now the hearts can start talking again,’” Westheimer said.
After World War II, at the age of 17, with all of her family members murdered, Westheimer and her friends moved to a kibbutz in the British Mandate of Palestine. There, she joined the Haganah — a precursor to the Israel Defense Forces — that fought for the establishment of the State of Israel.
After World War II, at the age of 17, with all of her family members murdered, Westheimer and her friends moved to a kibbutz in the British Mandate of Palestine. There, she joined the Haganah that fought for the establishment of the State of Israel.
“I learned to assemble a rifle in the dark and was trained as a sniper so that I could hit the center of the target time after time,” Westheimer wrote in The New York Times in 1990. “As it happened, I never did get into actual combat, but that didn’t prevent my being severely wounded. I almost lost both my feet as a result of a bombing attack on Jerusalem.” She married David Bar-Haim, an Israeli soldier, in 1950 and they moved to Paris that same year. Despite lacking a high school degree, Westheimer was admitted to and studied psychology at the prestigious Sorbonne University. Westheimer and Bar-Haim divorced in 1955. She would marry her second husband, Dan Bommer in 1956. They moved to New York where Westheimer continued her studies at the New School for Social Research. There, she earned degrees in psychology and sociology in 1959, with a thesis on the children of Heiden camp. Westheimer and Bommer had a daughter, Miriam Yael, but following yet another divorce, Westheimer would become a single mother.
In 1961, she married Manfred “Fred” Westheimer, an engineer and fellow Holocaust survivor. Westheimer and Fred would remain married until he passed away in 1997. “My late husband, Fred Westheimer—a wonderful man, we were married for 38 years,” Westheimer told an audience at Columbia in 2013.
She became a U.S. citizen in 1965. From 1967-1970, Westheimer worked at Planned Parenthood of New York City. While working there, she earned a doctorate in education from the Teacher’s College at Columbia University. Her thesis was on “the contraceptive use and abortion histories of more than 2,000 women.” During the 1970s, she became an associate professor and taught sex counseling at Lehman College in the Bronx. After training in sex therapy with Dr. Helen Singer Kaplan, Westheimer opened her own practice in 1975.
In 1980, Westheimer’s life would change forever when she was scouted by a manager at New York’s WYNY-FM radio station, Betty Elam. Westheimer began to broadcast her show “Sexually Speaking,” a weekly 15-minute show on Sundays. It would be the first major step toward eventually becoming known as “America’s sex therapist.” In 1983, Westheimer published her first book, “Dr. Ruth’s Guide to Good Sex,” which became a bestseller. Over the years, she would author more than 40 books across the field of sex and relationships. By 1984, “Sexually Speaking” became nationally syndicated, propelling her to become a household name. Everyone from teenagers to the elderly would tune in for candid, kind-spirited advice on sex and relationships.
Her Jewish roots were always a part of her existence. In 1995, Westheimer co-authored “Heavenly Sex: Sexuality in the Jewish Tradition” with Jonathan Mark. The book is described as revealing “how the Jewish tradition is much more progressive than popular wisdom might lead one to believe.
In her second-to-last book, “The Doctor Is In: Dr. Ruth on Love, Life, and Joie de Vivre” Westheimer advised about boredom — a feeling she didn’t appear to endure much in her active, nine-decade life: “The first step to fighting boredom is to recognize it. One clue is that you’re always tired even though there’s no particular cause, like a baby who wakes you five times a night or financial worries that keep you from falling asleep. The reason that you are tired is that there’s nothing about your life that makes you excited. If you have nothing to look forward to, then a listless funk will surround you, and a nap becomes enticing because at least your dreams are somewhat entertaining.”
Westheimer’s final book, “Roller-Coaster Grandma: The Amazing Story of Dr. Ruth” was published in 2018. It was a graphic novel for kids aged 8-12 about her life from escaping the Nazis to becoming a professor and respected media icon.
In 2023, Westheimer successfully lobbied Democratic New York Gov. Kathy Hochul to create the role of Loneliness Ambassador — focusing on combating loneliness among older adults. The New York Times reported in November 2023 that “reading the diary now, Dr. Westheimer recognized the parallels between human sexual problems and struggles with loneliness. No one wants to admit to having trouble with intimacy, and no one wants to admit to not having enough friends.”
Her concern for mental health of all those she advised over her career is embodied in the final words in her Shoah Foundation testimony from 26 years ago: “My message to the next generation is to not forget the past, maybe to draw a lot of strength from being Jewish and from all of those experiences that we Jews have had, and to be wonderful parents and grandparents and to keep on that tradition of family life and being together for many years to come.”
As the world of relationship and love advice continues without its matriarch, a new generation of Dr. Ruths are working on the path that she paved for so many decades. One of the most prominent people walking that path today is relationship coach, podcaster and author Jillian Turecki.
“I was — still am — such a fan of Dr. Ruth,” Turecki told the Journal. “Her legacy is so immense: It was such a revolution to hear this woman teach people that sexual attraction isn’t just something of the body — it also has to include the brain. She shared the radical idea that sex and desire require our creativity — we can’t always just have the same version of intimacy or the same conversations. She really pioneered the idea that nurturing all parts of intimacy is what makes a strong relationship. Before Dr. Ruth, public dialogue on sex and relationships was taboo and often so clouded in euphemism that it was impossible to learn anything. Because of Dr. Ruth, public dialogue on sex and relationships became conversational. Dr. Ruth made it okay to talk about sex and relationships instead of hiding everything behind closed doors and wondering why it didn’t feel right. But Dr. Ruth did something else, too: She added humor. She added directness. She normalized sexuality, and gave us all permission to explore it.”
Westheimer is survived by their two children, Miriam and Joel, and four grandchildren.
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