Imagine going to hear Dr. Ruth Westheimer speak — and she doesn’t talk about sex. That’s pretty much what happened at the Jewish Community High School of the Bay’s second-ever commencement June 8, where the famed sex therapist was keynote speaker.
“I will allude to it,” she said in an interview beforehand, at the Ritz-Carlton in San Francisco, where she was staying. “But I won’t talk about it directly with high-schoolers. When they see me, they are already thinking about sex, and that’s enough.”
When Westheimer received her doctorate, she was too poor to buy an academic robe. She had to rent one, and it was way too big and far too long — not surprising since she is 4 foot 7. But when she received an honorary doctorate from Hebrew Union College a few years ago, she splurged on her own, so she was thrilled to have an opportunity to wear it again.
Westheimer told the graduates how lucky they are to have received a Jewish education.
She likes to tell both high school and college students, “Watch out and don’t do anything stupid on the Internet.”
While Westheimer had the crowd at the JCHS graduation in hysterics, she also evoked serious emotion when she told of seeing her parents in her native Germany for the last time when she was 10, as she fled for the safety of Switzerland. And of how at the orphanage where she was sent, she longed to study like the boys, but was not permitted to do so.
She urged students to maintain their ties to their heritage, while recognizing that in college they will meet many people and potentially could fall in love with someone who is not Jewish.
Giving advice to graduates is just one of an endless list of activities keeping Westheimer busy.
During her interview with j., she had lots of other projects to discuss. “Write this down,” she instructed, peppering her speech with such phrases as “Look how good Westheimer works.”
Westheimer turned 78 last week, and showed not a sign of slowing down. She has written more than 30 books, most recently “Musically Speaking,” which explains how certain songs and melodies have been a healing force in her life.
Her “Sex for Dummies” is on its third edition and has been translated into 27 languages.
She recently served as producer of a DVD about the Druze community in Israel. Called “The Olive and the Tree: The Secret Strength of the Druze,” it focuses on Druze family life, and will be shown on Israeli television and PBS.
She teaches a course on the Jewish family at Princeton and a class on the American family at Yale. And this summer, she will be teaching a course for Israeli military officers about family dynamics (since she immigrated to pre-state Israel before the United States, her Hebrew is as fluent as her English). She is serving as International Hillel’s “Ambassador of Love,” recently making an appearance as such at Hillel at Stanford’s groundbreaking ceremony.
With two engagements in three days at the Jewish Community High School, she was happy to oblige Hillel at Stanford as well, because “God forbid at the age of 78 I have a day without something to do.”
Mem Dryan Bernstein, a former Bay Area resident who made Jewish Community High School’s building possible through funding from the Keren Keshet Foundation, said she was struck by how the students’ own assessment of their education tied in so nicely with what Westheimer had to say.
“She put into bold focus how an education at the high school provides its graduates with the sense of their Jewish identity and a broad sweep of Jewish history, so that they’re better prepared for the challenges of interacting with their university colleagues and peers,” said Bernstein.
Westheimer is also active with the Jed Foundation, dedicated to reducing suicide among college students, and serves on numerous boards of organizations that she supports. “The world has to know how concerned I am about Jewish identity,” she said.
How does she do it all?
“I sleep eight hours a night, and have wonderful help at home. I haven’t been in a supermarket in years.”
She also gets a weekly massage, but most of all, “I’m very fortunate. I love what I’m doing. I’m a very happy camper.”