Karola Ruth Westheimer (born June 4, 1928), better known as Dr. Ruth, is a Jewish German-American sex therapist, talk show host, author, professor, Holocaust survivor, and former Haganah sniper.
Born in Germany to a Jewish family, as the Nazis came to power Westheimer’s parents sent her at 10 years old to an orphanage in Switzerland for safety. Her parents were subsequently sent to concentration camps by the Gestapo, and killed. After World War II ended, she immigrated to British-controlled Mandatory Palestine.
Westheimer joined the Haganah Jewish Zionist underground paramilitary organization (later, the Israel Defense Forces) in Jerusalem. Because of her diminutive height of 4 ft 7 in, she was trained as a scout and sniper. Of this experience, she said, “I never killed anybody, but I know how to throw hand grenades and shoot.” She became an ace sniper, and learned to assemble a rifle in the dark. When she was 90 years old, she demonstrated that she was still able to put together a Sten gun with her eyes closed.
In 1948, on her 20th birthday, Westheimer was seriously wounded in action by an exploding shell during a mortar fire attack on Jerusalem during the 1947â1949 Palestine war; the explosion killed two girls who were right next to her. She had near-fatal injuries; she was temporarily paralyzed, almost lost both of her feet, the top of one of her feet was blown off, and it was several months of recuperating in a ward before she was able to walk again.
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