Dr. Ruth Westheimer, the beloved sex expert, TV and radio personality and Holocaust survivor, passed away on July 12 at the age of 96. The following is a eulogy given by her granddaughter Leora Einleger at the beloved icon’s intimate funeral held in Manhattan on July 14.
For a woman whose childhood was brutally and unjustly cut short by the Nazis when she was 10.5 years old, my Omi’s apartment, where she lived for close to 60 years, served as her cluttered refuge. A place to collect all the dollhouses and turtles she was never able to play with as a child, and a place filled with pictures and memories of the life she built for herself in Switzerland, Israel, France and finally America.
Nestled between pictures of my Omi and President Clinton and artwork I made in 4th grade sits one of the many, many bookshelves covering my Omi’s apartment. Books were an integral part of who she was. As a girl she was deprived of a high school education and would spend nights in the orphanage in Switzerland poring over borrowed geography and biology books to try and educate herself. In addition to the 40+ books she wrote, her shelves are filled with insights into who she was.
On the left side of her bookshelf sits her book “Sex for Dummies.” While it was my Omi’s most successful book, she never liked the title. She never wanted anyone to feel that a question they had was a dumb one. This led her to ask radio listeners to say that their friend had a question whenever they had a sex question they were embarrassed to ask. Her sensitivities to human sexuality and the human experience extended beyond sex education. I cannot count how many times I have been out with my Omi where a middle-aged man stopped her to tell her that her compassion, decency and kindness during the AIDS epidemic saved his life.
Sitting next to “Sex for Dummies” on the bookshelf is “Dr. Ruth’s Guide to Erotic and Sensuous Pleasures.” This was a personal favorite of mine, as it was dedicated to my brother Ari who was just a 1-year-old at the time. When people ask what it’s like to have Dr. Ruth for a grandma, I just share with them that Ari’s friend found this book and its dedication to him when he was in high school. Or the time when she was 91 and I brought her into a psychology course at Barnard College to listen to the lecture, only for it to turn it into a 150-person class asking her sex and relationship questions (including questions from my professor).
Next on the bookshelf is a book on great classical comedy films. Although she often couldn’t understand most jokes, my Omi was one-of-a-kind funny. But more than that, she understood the power of comedy in education. She would often quote the Talmud and say “a lesson taught with humor is a lesson retained.” There was always wisdom and much to learn behind her silliness. And, for the past 10 years, my husband Elan has built such a special relationship with her. He was the only person who had inside jokes with her and whom she had a nickname for.
In the middle of the bookshelf sits “An American Experiment” by David Rubinstein. Few people represent the American dream and experience more than my Omi. The Statue of Liberty had a special place in her heart. Where else could an orphan of the Holocaust, with no high school education, start as a house cleaner and through her resilience, grit and joie de vivre, her joy of life, change the lives of millions?
Next, the book “It Could Always Be Worse” by Margot Zemach. Of everything in my Omi’s apartment, this book represents her the best. After Dobbs overturned 50 years of well-founded precedent providing a fundamental right to abortion, I was so worried about my grandmother. I wrote an article about the pain I felt for her to see America fall apart. Hadn’t she been through enough? As always, she was optimistic. She reminded me that just as she had changed the times she lived in, with the law degree I was pursuing, so too could I change the times I was living in. And with her witty sense of humor, she quickly assured me that we could always move to Canada and live with my aunt and uncle.
And finally, there’s the book “Grandparenthood.” When I was in second grade, Omi came to my school for grandparent’s day. She pulled me aside and told me that while she was the only living grandparent I had, and I may see other children with more grandparents, I shouldn’t be sad and that she would always play the role of four grandparents. She lived up to that completely. She came to every single musical theater performance I was in. Really, every single one — even when I played a rock and didn’t have a line, she greeted me after the show with a big “BRRRRAVO” on my incredible performance as an inanimate object. She saw all four of her grandchildren grow up and graduate college, something she often said reminded her that Hitler lost, and she won. Six weeks ago, she even attended my law school graduation. We suggested she stay home and that I would come to her after the graduation in my regalia for pictures. But there was no stopping her. She was at Madison Square Garden for the whole ceremony. And just last year, we danced together at my wedding. My wedding ring is a yellow diamond to match hers.
The world was lucky to have my Omi. But I’ve been even luckier to have her as my person.
