Dr. Ruth K. Westheimer came to Temple Sinai of North Dade to participate in the “installation” of Cantor Michael Kruk.  She is a member of Cantor Kruk’s former German Jewish Synagogue in New York City.  She wrote fondly of him in her book Musically Speaking, A Life Through Song, a book that she recommended to the Temple Congregation when she spoke before it on Sunday. Seeing her in person is much better than listening to her on a radio program.  Her scratchy and screechy voice is, on her, an ornament.  She started organizing the proceedings in the Sanctuary in order to have things as she wanted them in order for her to be comfortable and, as she said, after all, she is very short, four feet seven inches tall.

She bossed around everyone and made the Rabbi Blush.  She had him announce that it was all right to say the word, orgasm, in Temple.  Things continued progressively from there.  She made the audience laugh for she has an excellent sense of timing and her jokes were quite appropriate.  But, what was most significant was her acknowledgement in her book and to the audience that she loved music and that it was very important to her throughout her life – although she cannot carry a tune.

Her experiences in World War II Europe were mostly in Switzerland in an orphanage for Jewish children where she was assigned housework and was denied opportunities for higher education.  After the war, she went to Israel and picked oranges and olives until she went to school to become an elementary school teacher. As she told us privately, she, the holder of many honorary degrees, three higher degrees, and a Ph D, never went to a high school.  She studied at the Sorbonne, Columbia and the New School for Social Research.

This is a tiny woman who must have a permanent crick in her neck because everyone is so much taller than she is.  She is very fast, walking at a pace that drives her and everyone else to get to where she is going, listening to her own drummer as she pelted away.  Song was necessary to become a kindergarten teacher, that she was, and music has always been an integral part of her life although she could only hum along. The classics were important to her family and the milieu from which she escaped although her family was lost in the Holocaust.

Hers was a sexist, male dominated and authoritarian life until she gave herself permission to be liberated as a human, woman and Jew.  She is a tireless speaker for progressive causes and has made an impression on college age youth because of her frank discussion of subjects very dear to them – and to the rest of us.