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Holocaust Survivor and Sex Expert Dr. Ruth Westheimer Dies at 96
Ruth Westheimer at the 61st Grammy Awards, Los Angeles, California, US, Feb. 10, 2019. Photo: Reuters
Holocaust survivor and renowned sex therapist Dr. Ruth Westheimer died on Friday at her home in New York City at the age of 96. The cause of death is unknown.
“She was restful when she passed away. Her son and daughter were with her and holding her hand at that moment,” her longtime publicist, Pierre Lehu, told PEOPLE magazine. “It was as peacefully as she could possibly go.”
The sexologist, talk show host, and author — known as “Dr. Ruth” — was born Karola Ruth Siegel on June 4, 1928, in Wiesenfeld, Germany. She was the only child of orthodox Jewish parents Julius and Irma Siegel. Her father, Julius, was arrested by the Nazis in 1938. Not long after, her mother and grandmother put her on a train to Switzerland as part of the “kindertransport,” which was an organized effort that transported thousands of Jewish children out of Germany. After the war, she learned that her entire family was murdered by the Nazis, with her father dying in the Auschwitz concentration camp.
Westheimer immigrated to Israel following the war and began going by her middle name, Ruth. She trained to be a sniper for the Haganah, a Zionist paramilitary organization. She later moved to Paris, to study psychology at Sorbonne University, and then New York City.
She earned a master’s degree in sociology and a doctorate in education from Columbia University, and finished her postdoctoral work on human sexuality at the New York University Medical Center. In 1980, she began hosting the live, call-in sex advice radio show “Sexually Speaking,” which lasted ten years and led to other television and radio shows, including “The Dr. Ruth Show.”
The Hulu documentary “Ask Dr. Ruth” premiered in 2019. Westheimer also published a number of books, including “Dr. Ruth’s Guide to Good Sex” and “Sex for Dummies.” She taught at Columbia, Yale, and Princeton, in addition to Hunter College. She was also the inspiration behind the one-woman play, “Becoming Dr. Ruth,” and the board game, Dr. Ruth’s Game of Good Sex.
Westheimer is survived by her son Joel, her daughter Miriam, and four grandchildren. She was married three times. Her third husband, fellow Holocaust survivor Manfred “Fred” Westheimer, died in 1997.
In a 1997 advertisement by the American Jewish Committee that was printed in The New York Times, Westheimer talked about being Jewish and the role it plays in her life.
“The world can learn something valuable from the Jewish experience,” she wrote. “We have been the objects of the most perverse form of human hatred — the attempt to destroy an entire people. But we never permitted that hatred to determine who we are or what we stand for. As Jews, we never forgot that we are called upon by our tradition to repair the world by transforming hatred into love and by teaching and working for justice and peace.”
“And for a Jewish people whose numbers were so decimated, let future generations fulfill the Biblical commandment — one Dr. Ruth especially endorses — ‘be fruitful and multiply,’” she added.
The post Holocaust Survivor and Sex Expert Dr. Ruth Westheimer Dies at 96 first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Jewish National Fund and Ne’eman Foundation have lost their Canadian charitable tax status
Two Jewish Canadian charities have had their charitable status formally revoked by Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) and can no longer issue receipts for tax purposes. CRA’s published notice in the government-issued Canada Gazette on Aug. 10 confirmed the revocations of the charitable registrations for the Jewish National Fund of Canada (JNF) and Ne’eman Foundation of […]
The post Jewish National Fund and Ne’eman Foundation have lost their Canadian charitable tax status appeared first on The Canadian Jewish News.
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Tim Walz Praised, Met With Muslim Cleric Who Promoted ‘Pro-Hitler’ Film, Defended Hamas’ Oct. 7 Massacre
US Vice President and Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris and her running mate Minnesota Governor Tim Walz hold a campaign event in Eau Claire, Wisconsin, US, Aug. 7, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Kevin Mohatt
Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, the Democratic nominee for US vice president, has praised and hosted several times a controversial Muslim cleric who promoted a pro-Adolf Hitler film and later expressed support for Hamas’ Oct. 7 massacre across southern Israel, according to new reports.
Walz hosted Asad Zaman, the imam of the Muslim American Society of Minnesota, on at least five occasions as governor of Minnesota, the Washington Examiner reported. Zaman has a lengthy history of issuing public support for violence against Jews and Israel, leading to questions about the extent of Walz’s relationship with him.
The Minnesota governor invited Zaman, alongside other leaders in the Muslim community, to attend a May 2023 meeting about mosque security, according to the Examiner. In May 2020, Zaman spoke at an event to call for non-violent protests in the aftermath of the killing of George Floyd. One year earlier, the Muslim cleric attended a Ramadan event hosted by Walz’s office.
The revelations of Walz’s ties to Zaman come as the campaign of US Vice President and Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris has insisted that her running mate has no “personal relationship” with the imam. However, according to footage unearthed by the Examiner, Walz called Zaman a “master teacher” at an event hosted by Minnesota’s Muslim American Society on Feb. 16, 2018, at the South Metro Islamic Center in Rosemount, Minnesota.
“I would like to first of all say thank you to the imam,” Walz said at the 2018 event. “I am a teacher, so when I see a master teacher, I know it. Over the time we’ve spent together, one of the things I’ve had the privilege of is seeing the things in life through the eye of a master teacher, to try and get the understanding.”
In 2015, Zaman encouraged his social media followers to watch an infamously pro-Hitler film titled “The Greatest Story Never Told.” The 2013 film is popular with neo-Nazis and considered to be revisionist history which depicts Hitler as a hero.
Years later, Zaman signaled support for the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas’ murder of 1,200 people and kidnapping of some 250 hostages during its rampage across southern Israel on Oct. 7 of last year. The onslaught was the biggest single-day massacre of Jews since the Holocaust.
On the day of the surprise invasion, Zaman posted on Facebook that he “stands in solidarity with Palestinians against Israeli attacks.” That same day, he shared a social media post that stated, “Palestine has every right to have its freedom from the Zionists who [invaded] its land from many countries mostly Eastern Europe.”
Zaman has also shared links to Hamas press releases “mourning” the death of terrorists.
On Oct. 8, 2023, the cleric lambasted US Rep. Katie Porter (D-CA) on X/Twitter for condemning the Hamas atrocities, asking the lawmaker if she will “also condemn Israel’s attacks on Palestinian civilians and children?”
“Do you also stand with the Palestinian people? Do you also reaffirm the right of Palestinians to defend themselves?” Zaman asked Porter.
Two days later, Zaman targeted Minnesota Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party chair Ken Martin on X/Twitter, writing that Martin’s group “cannot be joined at the hip to apartheid Israel and still hope to court the Muslim vote” after the political leader said he was “beyond heartbroken” to learn Israelis he knew were “brutally killed or kidnapped” on Oct. 7.
Zaman also criticized Martin for expressing sympathy toward civilians killed in the Al Ahli Arab hospital in Gaza. The Muslim cleric chastised Martin for not condemning the Jewish state.
“So Ken. You can easily condemn Hamas for killing civilians, but you can’t muster the courage to condemn Israel for killing civilians? Shame on you,” Zaman posted on X/Twitter.
Independent studies and Western intelligence agencies have found that the explosion at Al Ahli hospital was caused by a misfired rocket from the Palestinian Islamic Jihad terror group in Gaza, not Israel.
Zaman previously attempted to equate the Hamas terrorist group to former Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett, questioning why Israeli civilians are not “punished” for installing a so-called “genocidal” leader.
“If Palestinians are punished for electing Hamas, why is Israel not punished for electing this genocidal maniac as its leader?” Zaman posted to X/Twitter in May 2021.
An investigation by US federal prosecutors described the Muslim American Society of Minnesota as “the overt arm of the Muslim Brotherhood in America.” The Muslim Brotherhood is internationally recognized as a terrorist organization.
The post Tim Walz Praised, Met With Muslim Cleric Who Promoted ‘Pro-Hitler’ Film, Defended Hamas’ Oct. 7 Massacre first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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US Approves $20 Billion Israel Weapons Package, Including Fighter Jets
An Israeli tank maneuvers, amid the Israel-Hamas conflict, near the Israel-Gaza border, in Israel, July 9, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Amir Cohen
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Tuesday approved the possible sale to Israel of fighter jets and other military equipment worth over $20 billion, the Pentagon said.
In a statement, the Pentagon said Blinken approved the possible sale of F-15 jets and equipment worth nearly $19 billion. He also approved the possible sale of tank cartridges worth around $774 million and army vehicles worth $583 million, the Pentagon said.
The tank rounds would be almost immediately available for delivery. The Boeing Co F-15 fighter jets would take years to produce and deliver.
The US has supported Israel as its top Middle East ally prosecutes a war in the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip. The war was set off by the Palestinian terrorist group’s Oct. 7 attack in southern Israel.
While approving weapons to Israel, Washington has also tried to arrange a ceasefire deal in Gaza that would potentially stave off a wider Middle East war.
Fears of a broader war have increased since the recent killings of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh in Iran and Hezbollah military commander Fuad Shukr in Beirut. Both drew threats of retaliation against Israel.
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