Quicknation    Dr. Ruth Westheimer

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Dr. Ruth Westheimer .

Westheimer was born in Frankfurt, but since her family was Jewish she 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 (4 ft 7 in) 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 earned her Master's in sociology and a Ed.D. in education from Teachers College, Columbia University. She completed post-doctoral work in human sexuality at New York-Presbyterian Hospital.

Her pioneering show 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 . 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.