Trivia

Her parents sent her to Switzerland to escape the Nazis when she was ten years old. Both her parents were killed in the Holocaust. She grew up in a kibbutz in Israel.

According to her statements on the February 28, 2002 episode of Politically Incorrect (1993), Dr. Ruth was a sniper in the Israeli (Haganah) Army.

Lifelong friend of Joan Rivers. Westheimer attended her funeral after the comedienne passed away on September 7, 2014.

The biographical drama, "Becoming Dr. Ruth", based on the life of Ruth Westheimer, opened in New York City's The Westside Theatre in November 2013. Starring Debra Jo Rupp as Dr. Ruth, it was written by Mark St. Germain and directed by Julianne Boyd for The Barrington Stage Company.

Received the Women's International Center (WIC) Living Legacy Award in 1988.

Earned her Ed.D. from Teachers College, Columbia University in 1970.

She appeared as herself in "Dr. Ruth", a 1993 episode of the sci-fi drama series Quantum Leap.

In 1965, Westheimer became a naturalized U.S. citizen.

Ruth Westheimer, better known as Dr. Ruth, was a German and American sex therapist and talk show host.

She regained her German citizenship in 2007 through the German Citizenship Project that enabled descendants of Germans deprived of their citizenship during Nazi rule to reclaim their citizenship without losing the citizenship of their home country.

In 1956, at 28 years of age, and with a newborn daughter, Westheimer immigrated to the United States, settling in Washington Heights, Manhattan.She worked as a maid, initially for 75 cents an hour and later for one dollar an hour (equal to $11.21 today) to put herself through graduate school.

In 2019, she published her 45th book on sex and sexuality.

In 2023, Westheimer received the Women's Entrepreneurship Day Psychology Pioneer Award from the United Nations.

Westheimer spoke English, German, French, and Hebrew.

Speaking of the Holocaust in 2021, Westheimer said: "We must keep saying to the young people, 'Think of these words - never again! Never again!' All of this must never happen again.".

In 2017 she was inducted into the German-American Hall of Fame.

In 1990, Westheimer starred in an ABC sitcom pilot, Dr. Ruth's House, which aired as a one-time special in June of that year. ABC did not move forward in turning the pilot into a series.

In 2008, Westheimer's name was added to the Bronx Walk of Fame (as the first "Honorary Bronxite," chosen for contributions to the life of the borough).

Among her concerns in the 21st century was loneliness of people. In 2023, Gov. Kathy Hochul of New York appointed Westheimer as the inaugural "Loneliness Ambassador".

The documentary Ask Dr. Ruth from 2019 and directed by Ryan White was in theaters, and was made available on Hulu, as she approached her 90th birthday. It won a 4th Critics' Choice Documentary Award in 2019 as "Most Compelling Living Subject of a Documentary," and was a 19th AARP Movies for Grownups Awards nominee in 2019 for "Best Documentary.".

Westheimer was a board member of the Museum of Jewish Heritage in Lower Manhattan in New York City.

Her show The All New Dr. Ruth Show won a 1988 Ace Award, and was awarded the 1994 Magnus Hirschfeld Medal and the 1995 American Academy of Clinical Sexology Medal of Sexology.

Singer Pattie Brooks recorded a song as an ode to her, "Dr. Ruth," with a trendy, dance-rock tinged, high pressure beat.

In December 2014, Westheimer was a guest at a wedding in the Bronx. The groom, Rabbi Benjamin Goldschmidt, was the great-grandson of the woman who had helped rescue Westheimer from Nazi Germany.

In 1994, she appeared in a computer game, an interactive CD-ROM adaptation of Dr. Ruth's Encyclopedia of Sex released for Windows and the Philips CD-i.

Westheimer also appeared in several commercial advertisements, including a 1990 commercial for Clairol Herbal Essences shampoo and body wash, a 1991 Pepsi commercial (along with Annette Funicello, Frankie Avalon, Bo Jackson, and Gilbert Gottfried), and a 1994 Honda Prelude ad.

In January 2009, the 55th anniversary issue of Playboy magazine included Westheimer as #13 in a list of the 55 most important people in sex from the past 55 years. That year, Vanity Fair named her one of "12 women who changed the way we look at sex." She also appeared in the 2009 documentary Hugh Hefner: Playboy, Activist and Rebel.

In 1996, she co-authored Heavenly Sex, on Judaism and sex, in which she wrote: "The great rabbi Simeon ben-Halafta called the penis the great peacemaker of the home." She refers to the Book of Ruth as encouraging single women to initiate sex (providing the relationship leads to marriage), cites a Talmudic mandate that an unemployed man must make love to his wife every day, and mentions the writings of a 12th-century rabbi who suggested that couples use different positions while having sex.

Interior designer Nate Berkus hosted her in 2011 on The Nate Berkus Show, after redoing the living room and dining room of her Manhattan apartment, in which she had lived for 50 years, to reduce clutter.

Westheimer's media career began in 1980 when she was 52 years old, and her radio show, Sexually Speaking, debuted on WYNY-FM in New York City. In it, she answered questions called in by listeners, and the show became nationally syndicated.

She was cremated after her funeral service at Riverside Memorial Chapel in Manhattan. Her urn was buried at Cedar Park Cemetery in Paramus, New Jersey.