One of coolest Jews_of_NY, that ever lived, Dr. Ruth Westheimer passed away today at the age of 96. She made history, she made her people proud and stood up of all marginalized people way before it was cool. Born in 1928 in Germany, her Jewish parents named her Karola Ruth Siegel. After the Holocaust she immigrated to Israel and despite her being only 4 feet 7 inches (140 cm) tall and 17 years of age, she joined the Haganah (the early version of the IDF), and was trained as a sniper. On her 20th birthday, Westheimer was seriously wounded in action by an exploding shell during a mortar fire attack on Jerusalem during the 1947–1949 Israeli War of Independence, and almost lost both of her feet. She made it to the United States in 1956, she worked as a maid to put herself through graduate school, earned a Master of Arts in sociology from The New School in 1959, and earned a doctorate at 42 years of age from Teachers College, Columbia University, in 1970. In 1984 The New York Times no...