The Doctor Is In

by Ruth K. Westheimer

  While I would certainly have been more than willing to take aim at Hitler in real life, I’m actually thankful that I never had to shoot anyone. The main duty that was assigned to me was to stand up on the roof of a building and oversee a checkpoint down below. If anyone tried to force their way through, I would have had to put my shooting skills to the test. Only once while I was on duty did someone forget the password. Seeing that there was a problem, I picked up my rifle and unlatched the safety. But suddenly the man in question regained the use of his tongue, the password slipped out, and I put the safety back on my gun.

  In addition to standing on rooftops ready to shoot enemy invaders, I also served as a messenger. I was fast—and I guess because I was short, those in charge must have figured that I would make a small target for the other side’s snipers. No one ever said that to me, but when I was delivering messages, I kept my legs moving and made sure to stay as low to the ground as I could, because if they were using me to deliver a message, that meant there was an element of risk.

  I didn’t serve very long in the Haganah. My tour was cut short after I was seriously wounded, though it had nothing to do with my duties as a sentry or messenger. It was my twentieth birthday, June 4, 1948. I was in the youth hostel where I was living while studying to be a kindergarten teacher, which I continued to do while also serving in the Haganah. Air raid sirens went off that afternoon, which meant we had to go down to the shelter in the basement. The shelter was a big room lined with benches and lit by candles. Since this was a fairly common occurrence, I wasn’t overly worried. From experience I knew that we might be sitting down there for some time. A friend had given me a novel in Hebrew for my birthday; I decided to run up to my room, grab the book, and then head down to the shelter. I was walking through the lobby on my way to the basement stairs when a shell landed right outside the front door, sending shrapnel in every direction. There was plaster and blood everywhere as dust rained down from the ceiling. Three people died, including a girl standing right next to me. I was thrown up against the wall, though I don’t have any recollection of exactly how that happened. While I had pieces of shrapnel embedded all over, the worst pain came from my legs. I looked at them, and my friend Hannelore was trying to unlace the new shoes I had gotten for my birthday. I was stunned and wondered why she was doing that. Once she’d removed them, I could see all the blood. I said to her, “Do I have to die?”

  I was feeling very woozy. Whether it was from the loss of blood or the fear that I might never walk again, I don’t know, but when the ambulance arrived and I was put on a stretcher, rather than give in to the feeling of losing consciousness, I forced myself to remain alert. I knew a doctor at Hadassah Hospital, so that’s where I wanted to be taken.

  “Take me to Hadassah Hospital,” I demanded of the ambulance driver.

  “What do you think this is, a taxi service? I take you where I’m told.”

  “But I have a dear friend there,” I pleaded. “He is a doctor, and he will look after me.”

  The driver hesitated, and I knew then that if I pressed him further, I would get my way.

  “I’m an orphan of the Holocaust. If I’m going to die, I don’t want to die alone. At least at Hadassah Hospital I’ll have a friendly face to look at.”

  I don’t like playing the Holocaust card, but I was desperate, and it worked. The only problem was that my doctor friend wasn’t on duty when I arrived, and I had so many pieces of shrapnel in me and was bleeding so much that I couldn’t wait around for him to show up. By using his name, though, I got a surgeon friend of his to take my case. I had a fairly large piece of shrapnel in my neck, which thankfully hadn’t pierced an artery or I never would have made it. I’d also lost the top of my right foot, but the surgeon did a wonderful job of piecing me back together. (Once everything healed, I was back to dancing and later skiing. And no, the surgery isn’t why I’m so short!)

  Bodies were coming into the hospital at quite a pace. I was sent to another part of the hospital, which was a former cloister being used for convalescence. The building was packed with wounded soldiers and civilians. Since I was afraid of another bombing attack, when they brought me in, I pleaded with the admitting nurse to be put in the basement, which had been the library. I was told there were no available beds, but I got pretty worked up about my fear of another bomb blast. Luckily for me, the nurse was not only willing to bend the rules a bit but was also creative. It was true that there wasn’t a single empty bed in the basement, but noting my size, she ordered that I be placed on top of a bookshelf, where I just fit.

  There must have been fifty wounded soldiers down there, some very seriously hurt and who wouldn’t make it. But the morale was pretty good, considering, and the conditions were certainly uplifting to my morale, as I was the only woman in the room. That got me a lot of attention, and I loved it. Not only was I being noticed by all these soldiers, but there was also a very handsome male nurse who seemed to be spending a lot of time at my side. He had started medical school in Romania but hadn’t been able to finish. He was tall with dark blond hair and a twinkle in his eye. During a truce period, when there were no bombings, he came up to me with a special surprise as I lay there on my bookshelf.

  “Ruth, I think some sunshine would be good for you. What do you think?”

  “How do I get outside?” I asked, looking into his pale blue eyes.

  “Like this,” he said, as he picked me up in his arms. He carried me all the way into the courtyard and lay me down on some pillows that he’d placed ahead of time on the ground. I have to say, as a method of transportation, that one can’t be beat. He did that every day for the rest of the week—and believe me, I enjoyed every second of each trip and let him know it. I must have gotten my message across, because a few weeks later, when I was back at the hostel, he contacted me and we had a brief but intense love affair.

  Despite being wounded—or maybe a little because of it—I am very proud that I took an active role in the creation of Israel. However, I was always a little disappointed that I never got any recognition for it. Then, in the summer of 2013 while I was in Israel, I received a commendation. Better late than never? Absolutely. Not that anyone ever doubted my story; it is a bit too outrageous to be a lie.

  I don’t recommend fighting a war to anyone, but the feeling of being on the same side when the game involves not a ball but real bullets definitely brings you closer to your friends. On the larger scale, you’re serving your country; but when it comes to your unit, you’re actually defending each other’s lives. You depend on the other members of your unit, and they depend on you. It’s a unique feeling. We children had felt it to some degree when it came to Fraulein Riesenfeld, but as nasty an individual as she was, she could threaten only our bottoms, not our lives.

  When you’re in danger, you can’t help but take advantage of any break in the action. I know people in the business world are under a lot of stress, but try running down an alleyway knowing you might get shot at any moment. Now that’s stressful! So when you’re not on duty, the relief you feel is palpable. It might not be the joy of life so much as the joy of being alive, but it definitely gives you an appreciation of life that’s hard to get anywhere else.

  For your sake, I hope you never have to experience such circumstances. But if you want to feel joie de vivre in your everyday life, paying attention to your feelings when you are in a tight situation is a useful exercise. If you’re driving with your partner and you have a narrow miss, acknowledge the close call, touch each other, and if it’s safe, look at each other. When you’re out of the car, give each other a hug like you really mean it. Maybe imagine the worst for a second so that the person in your arms feels more special for that brief encounter. Joie de vivre isn’t limited to the best of times; it can also be felt in the worst of them. One of the most important guiding principles that I take from Judaism is the concept of tikkun olam, “repairing the world.” No one is immune from tragedy; everyone endures moments in life that are sad
and hard to overcome. I’m not trying to make you feel extra sorry for me, because when all is said and done, my life turned out pretty well. But what happened to me and so many other survivors of the Holocaust was that our entire world got ripped to shreds. Even the survivor of a tornado who can see nothing but destruction all around still has a larger society to fall back on. He or she remains an American from a certain state and has friends and family nearby. Those of us sent to the school in Heiden had none of that. We had to start from scratch to build a new world for ourselves. And so more than most, we understand how important it is to keep the world we have in good repair. We Jews do that through mitzvahs, good deeds. No one person can do it all, but if each of us tries to do our part, we can make our contribution. And so if I have been able to help others enjoy their sexuality more, I take that as part of my contribution to tikkun olam.

  While I have maintained my Judaism, I’m no longer Orthodox. I don’t believe that I have to strictly obey one set of rules to prove my faith, though I respect those who do. But I don’t belong to only one synagogue. One reason is that if anybody wonders why I wasn’t at synagogue last week, they think I was at the other! And in truth I go to many synagogues in New York, as I’m invited to Shabbat services all the time and have many rabbis and cantors whom I count as good friends.

  Being a celebrity in a house of worship is a little strange. You’re there to humble yourself before God, yet it’s difficult to feel sufficiently humble when you hear people whispering behind you, “Look, it’s Dr. Ruth.” It’s at times like these that I’m glad I became famous later in life. If you’re a young person in the spotlight, there are a lot more temptations. I can have fun being Dr. Ruth and at the same time take a step back and lean on my past to keep both my feet on the ground. And part of that support system is most definitely my religion.

  There are some people who use religion to kill joie de vivre. They’ve reached the conclusion that anything that is joyful should be put aside and that the only pleasure people should find is in worship. I guess you could say they have joie de religion. My advice to such people is to read the Song of Songs in the Bible. Read lines such as these and tell me that religion isn’t joyful:

  Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth—

  for your love is more delightful than wine.

  Pleasing is the fragrance of your perfumes;

  your name is like perfume poured out.

  No wonder the young women love you!

  Take me away with you—let us hurry!

  Let the king bring me into his chambers.

  —Song of Songs 3:2–4

  If you have the wrong attitude, you can suck the life out of anything—religion, life, love, even sex. So if you’re not benefiting from all the joy that life has to offer, don’t make excuses, especially when it comes to religion. Instead, examine that which is causing you to stifle your emotions and find ways of turning matters around so that you’re helped in living a rich life instead of hindered.

  I just mentioned that I am friends with several cantors. I am also very good friends with a conductor, Matthew Lazar, and the combination of these gentlemen—along with my longtime television producer, John Lollos—resulted in what I feel is a very entertaining and interesting film entitled A Jewish Spirit Sings that I appeared in and helped produce.

  The inspiration for this video was my book, Musically Speaking: A Life through Song (with Jerry Singerman, PhD). Many people felt that the story of the role that music played in my life, despite me being someone who doesn’t sing, deserved an additional format. Maestro Lazar, whom I’ll refer to as Mattie from now on, runs a New York City–based group, the Zamir Choral, and every year Mattie and his wife, Vivian, bring together those who sing in Jewish chorals from all across the country—over five hundred singers every year—to the North American Jewish Choral Festival. The amount of singing that takes place—whether in large groups rehearsing for the final performances, or in groups of twos and threes sitting on the lawn or strolling along the winding roads—is staggering. You don’t have to understand the words to feel the magic that all these voices circulating freely through the countryside provide. In 2008, I was to get an award at that festival, and so it seemed a great opportunity to produce a film that would bring all these elements together. The result was A Jewish Spirit Sings.

  There were many highlights during the long weekend we spent at the Hudson Valley Resort and Spa in the Catskills, but my favorite moments were those that brought together my three favorite cantors: Joseph Malovany (Fifth Avenue Synagogue), Alberto Mizrahi (Anshe Emet Synagogue, Chicago), and Jacob Mendelson (Temple Israel Center in White Plains, New York, retired). When you listen to one of these fantastic cantors singing in a synagogue, the performance is a key part of the liturgy and hence a very serious and dignified part of the service. But up in the Catskills, the three great singers were given a chance to let their true personalities shine through. Cantor Mendelson calls himself a humorist, and in fact he can be extremely funny even while singing religious music. A duet he performed with Cantor Mizrahi of “Chad Gadya” (which is the last song sung at a Passover seder), backed up by the Zamir Choral, had the entire audience smiling broadly as well as clapping and stomping their feet. Each man would sing a verse and then the other would repeat it, but in a fun, energetic way, a sort of “Can you top this” that you would never see two cantors do normally. It was this combination of the religious music—the distinguished cantors and the joy that was emanating from that stage as the two men competed—that made it an unforgettable moment for me as well as the audience, which cheered loudly after the number ended.

  I don’t know much about popular music, but the problem with it, as I see it, is that it has shallow roots. When each generation listens to different music instead of music that keeps a culture and society together, it can end up dividing us. (And when people are listening via headphones so that they are separated from the world . . . don’t get me started!) There can be so much power in music, but that power is felt at its strongest when it binds an entire people together—sort of what happens when we sing the national anthem at a ball game. That’s not to say that there’s anything wrong with pop music. As a society, though, we shouldn’t allow it to completely overshadow the rest of our musical heritage. Let me give you two examples of the important role that music played in my life, both similar, as they occurred on long train rides, and yet both so different.

  On that long ago train to Switzerland, the tears were flowing on almost every face. And how could they not? We were physically whole, but emotionally we’d been torn apart from that which mattered most to us, our families. I’d done what I could for that little girl by giving up my favorite doll, but I was left miserable and had no way of pulling myself together when everywhere I looked, all I could see on the faces around me was even more misery. So despite my lack of talent, I started singing. And whether it was to join my voice or drown me out, all the other children began singing too. We sang for ten hours straight—all the songs we’d learned from our families—until we reached our destination. We didn’t just sing those songs; we clung to them. They were our life raft as we drifted away into an unknown ocean. Just as Moses led the Israelites in song to give them courage as they crossed the Red Sea, we all took courage in the songs from our childhood. Never mind that many were of German origin rather than Jewish. We were children and didn’t understand the politics of Nazi Germany. These were the songs our parents had sung to us and that we’d sung during the holidays; the notes wrapped around us as if we somehow were still in the arms of our parents. And to this day, when I go to synagogue and hear “Tzadik Katamar,” which I used to listen to seated next to my father on Friday nights, I can almost feel his hand on mine.

  On the next important train ride of my life, as we left Switzerland for Toulon, France, where we would board the ship for Palestine, all of us sang for most of the journey. Again, we were going off to a strange land, but our singing wasn’t an effort to cover our
fear; it was an expression of the hope and joy we felt at heading toward a land that we so urgently wished would become the home we didn’t have. And again, these songs were mostly in German. What we didn’t know then was that when we arrived in Palestine, they’d mostly disappear from the repertoire of what we sang aloud. Most of the Jews already in Palestine were from other lands, many from Poland, and they didn’t want to hear anything German, as it reminded them of what the Germans had done to them. But at the time we sang them with gusto, lifting our voices to help us lift our spirits as our journey to the Promised Land began.

  Of course, I never forgot those songs from my childhood. I have only a handful of pictures from those early years in Frankfurt, but what I have a bounty of, inside my head, are the songs that I heard over and over again in those happy moments. When I sing them to myself, it helps me to go back in time and relive those years when all was right with the world. You can’t imagine how much comfort those songs have given me over my lifetime.

  Jewish New York

  I know there are some Jews who survived the Holocaust who gave up on their religion. They lost hope in God, and I certainly can’t blame them for having that attitude. But rather than turn away from my religion, I turned toward it for comfort. I’d lost my family, so how could I throw away the traditions that they taught me? And the most important was being Jewish.

  When I came to New York, I moved to Washington Heights, a neighborhood filled with German Jews, most of whom had escaped before the Nazis came to power and the door was slammed closed. In Washington Heights, I might still have people look down at me because of my height but not because of my background. I’d been forced into the life of a vagabond, but I didn’t want to feel like a stranger the rest of my life, and in Washington Heights being a German Jew was the norm. If I didn’t want to practice my broken English, I could walk into almost any shop and speak German. The delis stocked everything in terms of what I might consider comfort food. The newsstands carried German-language publications that I could read. In other words, I’d found a home. That was more than fifty years ago, and I’m still there—though the neighborhood has changed and there are fewer and fewer of us German Jews as it becomes a bit more posh. They’ve even started calling it “Hudson Heights,” to differentiate it from the Washington Heights of lower down the hill that is mostly Dominican.