Israeli Immigrant Great-Grandma Saves the Day

After yesterday’s sh*tshow following my tweet and post about Saturday Night Live’s antisemitic joke, I was in the mood for something positive.

Then Effie Hertzke came along and all was right with the world.

As Israel’s exercise centers reopened to the vaccinated on Sunday, 81-year-old Effie Hertzke was among the first to hit the gym — before hitting on the TV interviewer who asked her about it.

“I came straight from work. I really missed it,” Hertzke, a retired nurse who still volunteers at a hospital, told Channel 12 in American-accented Hebrew sprinkled with English phrases.

In an interview with the station’s deadpan interviewer Rafi Reshef, she also rolled up her sleeves to show off her muscles, adding that she continued to work out at home during the pandemic.

She was being interviewed while on a treadmill in a gym in Ramat Gan, next to Tel Aviv, and added that she stayed in shape by playing with her four great-grandchildren.

Asked about her fitness, she asked, “Do you want to see my muscles?”

“Can you see something?” she said, flexing her arm.

“Of course. You can tell you haven’t worked out for a while, but you can get it back, it’s just a matter of time,” replied Reshef.

“Oh! That is disgusting — look at what a body I have,” she said, indignantly.

Reshef said he meant it as a compliment, underlining her “potential.”

“What else do you want to do before you go home?” he asked.

“Maybe I’ll meet a young man who will invite me out for an orange juice or something like that,” she said, laughing.

“Are you married?” she asked Reshef in English, who replied that he is. “Aww, too bad,” she exclaimed.

The only thing that could have made this more epic is if Effie was using a cat filter.

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