Ruth Westheimer

Biography

Dr. Ruth Westheimer (born Karola Ruth Siegel, 1928–2024) — later world-famous as the sex therapist and media personality “Dr. Ruth” — was a Holocaust orphan who, as a teenager, volunteered in the defense of the nascent State of Israel.

Born in Frankfurt, Germany, she was sent to a Swiss orphanage on a Kindertransport in 1939; her parents were murdered in the Holocaust. In 1945 she made aliyah to Mandatory Palestine and joined the Haganah, where she was trained as a scout and sniper. On her 20th birthday in 1948, during Israel’s War of Independence, she was severely wounded by an exploding shell in Jerusalem and nearly lost both feet. She recovered and went on to a storied academic and broadcasting career in the United States, but remained a lifelong, outspoken supporter of Israel.

Her service places her among the overseas and immigrant volunteers who took up arms for Israel in 1948.