Dr. Ruth is congratulated by son
Joel and daughter Miriam |
WASHINGTON
HEIGHTS Y
Sexiest
Grandma In America
Celebrates Happy Birthday
Text and Photo by Tim Boxer
 UTH
WESTHEIMER retiring?
Sat it ain’t so. Actually the legendary sex therapist was
calling it quits after 11 years as president of Washington Heights
Y. So on her 75th
birthday 261 members and supporters came to install a new slate of
officers and lift a toast to “the sexiest grandmother in
America,” as former Mayor David Dinkins put it.
“Dr. Ruth touches many
people’s lives,” Dinkins noted, “even if it is below the
belt.”
Standing by proudly were
her children: son Joel, a professor of education at Ottawa
University, and daughter Miriam, the New York-based
director of Hebrew University’s Home Instruction for Parents of
Preschool Children.
Westheimer reiterated her
favorite story about a fellow German native, Henry Kissinger,
who also grew up in this neighborhood in the farthest stretch of
northern Manhattan.
Upon meeting Golda
Meir, Kissinger said, “I have to tell you I am an American
first, secretary of state second, and a Jew third.”
“That’s okay,” she
replied. “We read from right to left.”
“Today,” Westheimer
added, “I am going to read my age from right to left.”
In any case, she is not
bothered with age. “To me,” she said, “old age is always 15
years older than I am.”
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