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Dr. Ruth Westheimer Honored in NYC by Auschwitz Jewish Center

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Joel Einleger (Dr. Ruth’s son-in-law), Ari Einleger (Dr. Ruth’s grandson), Joel Westheimer (Dr. Ruth’s son), Leora Einleger (Dr. Ruth’s granddaughter), and Dr. Ruth Westheimer, who is a Museum of Jewish Heritage Trustee.
Museum of Jewish Heritage Chairman Bruce C. Ratner, New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman, and Auschwitz Jewish Center Foundation Chairman Simon Bergson.

Speakers Included Actor Jake Ehrenreich and Captain Benjamin Dratch

Dr. Ruth Westheimer, a Holocaust survivor and pioneer for talking explicitly about sexuality on radio and television, was honored by the Auschwitz Jewish Center on Wednesday, June 1st at the Museum of Jewish Heritage – A Living Memorial to the Holocaust in Manhattan.

Born in Germany in 1928, Dr. Westheimer, who is known to millions simply as “Dr. Ruth,” went to Switzerland at the age of 10 to escape the Holocaust, which wiped out her entire immediate family. At the age of seventeen she went to then-Palestine. She joined the Haganah, the Israeli freedom fighters, and was trained to be a sniper and was seriously wounded. She moved to Paris, studied at the Sorbonne and in 1956 went to the U.S. where she obtained her Master’s Degree (M.A.) in Sociology from the Graduate Faculty of the New School of Social Research and Doctorate of Education (Ed.D.) in the Interdisciplinary Study of the Family from Columbia University Teachers College.

Her work for Planned Parenthood led her to study human sexuality at Cornell University Medical Center, where she became an Adjunct Professor, and she is currently teaching at Columbia’s Teachers College. She lectures worldwide, and is the author of 38 books and the executive producer of five documentaries. Dr. Westheimer, a widow, has two children, four grandchildren and resides in New York City.

The Auschwitz Jewish Center, an affiliate of the Museum of Jewish Heritage—A Living Memorial to the Holocaust, is the only Jewish presence in the town of O´swieçcim—the town the Germans called Auschwitz. The Center is a haven where visitors to the Auschwitz-Birkenau camps can memorialize victims of the Holocaust and learn about the vibrancy of pre-war Jewish life in Poland.

In addition to Dr. Ruth, attendees included philanthropist and model Petra Nemcova, former New York City Mayor David Dinkins, New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman, Museum of Jewish Heritage Chairman Bruce C. Ratner, Museum of Jewish Heritage Chairman Emeritus Robert M. Morgenthau, and West Point class of 2012 graduate Captain Benjamin Dratch, who was part of the AJC’s American Service Academies Class of 2009.

Highlighted at the event were current and former participants in the American Service Academies Program, a 16-day educational initiative created by the Auschwitz Jewish Center. This leadership program is for a select group of cadets and midshipmen from the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, the U.S. Naval Academy, the U.S. Air Force Academy, and the U.S. Coast Guard Academy. Focusing on the Holocaust and related contemporary moral and ethical dilemmas, the program not only educates them about the past, but also stimulates dialogue about its relationship to the present and the future.

Ariella Haviv

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