Goy

File:Page from Yiddish-Hebrew-Latin-German dictionary by Elijah Levita.jpg

A page from Elia Levita's Yiddish-Hebrew-Latin-German dictionary (16th century) including the word goy (גוי), translated to Latin as ethnicus, meaning heathen or pagan.<ref name="ethnicus" />

In modern Hebrew and Yiddish, Template:Lang (Template:IPAc-en; Template:Script/Hebrew, pl: Template:Lang Template:IPAc-en, Template:Script/Hebrew or Template:Script/Hebrew) is a term for a gentile, a non-Jew.<ref name="HebDict" /> Through Yiddish,<ref name="Wolfthal" /> the word has been adopted into English (pl: goyim or goys) also to mean "gentile", sometimes in a pejorative sense.<ref name="ReferenceA" /><ref name="Oxford" /><ref name = "mw" />

The Biblical Hebrew word goy has been commonly translated into English as nation,<ref name = "ISB" /><ref name=wiseman /> meaning a group of persons of the same ethnic family who speak the same language (rather than the more common modern meaning of a political unit).<ref name=NationEty /> In the Bible, goy is used to describe both the Nation of Israel and other nations.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref name = "ISB" /><ref name=wiseman /> As a word principally used by Jews to describe non-Jews,<ref name="Oxford" /> it is a term for the ethnic out-group.<ref name=Magid>It is sometimes compared to similar terms in other cultures such as the Japanese word Gaijin or the Arabic Ajam. Template:Cite web</ref>

The meaning of the word goy in Hebrew evolved to mean "non-Jew" in the Hellenistic (300 BCE to 30 BCE) and Roman periods, as both Rabbinical texts and then Christian theology placed increasing emphasis on a binary division between Jews and non-Jews.

In modern usage in English, the extent to which goy is derogatory is a point of discussion in the Jewish community.

The word "goy" is sometimes used by white supremacists to refer to themselves when signaling a belief in conspiracy theories about Jews.<ref name=SPLC />

Hebrew Bible

The word Template:Lang means "nation" in Biblical Hebrew.<ref name=Rosen-Zvi /><ref name=Persico /> In the Torah, Template:Lang and its variants appear 560 times in reference to both the Israelites and the non-Israelite nations.<ref name=BrookeL />

The first recorded usage of goyim occurs in Template:Bibleverse and applies to non-Israelite nations. The first mention of goy in relation to the Israelites comes in Template:Bibleverse, when God promises Abraham that his descendants will form a Template:Lang ("great nation").<ref name=Lazarus />

There are two exceptions where a “Kingdom of Goyim” is mentioned. One is in Template:Bibleverse, where it states that the "King of Goyim" was Tidal. Bible commentaries suggest that the term may refer to Gutium. The other is in Template:Bibleverse, where a “King of Goyim in Gilgal” is included in the list of kings slain by Joshua. In all other cases the meaning of Template:Lang is 'nations.'<ref name=MooreColby /><ref name = "ISB" />

In Template:Bibleverse, the Israelites are referred to as a Template:Lang, a "holy nation".<ref name=Rosen-Zvi /><ref name="RoseKlein2009" /> One of the more poetic descriptions of the chosen people in the Hebrew Bible, and popular among Jewish scholars is Template:Lang, or "a unique nation upon the earth" (Template:Bibleverse and Template:Bibleverse)<ref name=Maroof />

Translations of 'goy' in English-language Christian Bibles

In English language Christian bibles, nation has been used as the principal translation for goy in the Hebrew Bible, from the earliest English language bibles such as the 1530 Tyndale Bible and the 1611 King James Version.<ref name="KJVLexicon" /><ref>Tyndale Gen 10</ref>

The King James Version of the Bible translates the word Template:Lang/Template:Lang as "nation" 374 times, "heathen" 143 times, "Gentile" 30 times (see Evolution of the Term below) and "people" 11 times.<ref name =KJVLexicon /> The New American Standard Bible translation uses the following words: "every nation" (2 times) Gentiles (1) Goiim (1), Harosheth-hagoyim* (3), herds (1), nation (120), nations (425), people (4).<ref name=NASLexicon>Template:Cite web</ref>

Evolution of the term

While the books of the Hebrew Bible often use Template:Lang to describe the Israelites, the later Jewish writings of the Hellenistic Period (from approximately 300 BCE to 30 BCE) tended to apply the term to other nations.<ref name=Rosen-Zvi />

Goy acquired the meaning of someone who is not Jewish in the first and second century CE. Before that time, academics Adi Ophir and Ishay Rosen-Zvi have argued, no crystallized dichotomy between Jew and non-Jew existed in Judaism.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref> Ophir and Rosen-Zvi state that the early Jewish convert to Christianity, Paul, was key in developing the concept of "goy" to mean non-Jew:

The Latin words gentes/gentilis – which also referred to peoples or nations – began to be used to describe non-Jews in parallel with the evolution of the word Template:Lang in Hebrew. Based on the Latin model, the English word "gentile" came to mean non-Jew from the time of the first English-language Bible translations in the 1500s (see Gentile).

The twelfth century Jewish scholar Maimonides defines goy in his Mishneh Torah as a worshipper of idolatry, as he explains, "Whenever we refer to a gentile [goy] without any further description, we mean one who worships false deities".<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> Maimonides saw Christians as idolators (because of concepts like the Trinity) but not Muslims who he saw as more strictly monotheistic.<ref name=Yanover />

As a pejorative

Goy can be used in a derogatory manner. The Yiddish lexicographer Leo Rosten in The New Joys of Yiddish defines goy as someone who is non-Jewish or someone who is dull, insensitive, or heartless.<ref name="Rosten2010">Template:Cite book</ref> Goy also occurs in many pejorative Yiddish expressions:

• Template:Transliteration (Template:Lang)Template:SndSomething only a goy would do or is capable of doing.<ref name="Rosten2010"/>
• Template:Transliteration (Template:Lang)Template:Snd"A goy stays a goy," or, less literally, according to Rosten, "What did you expect? Once an anti-Semite always an anti-Semite."<ref name="Rosten2010"/>
• Template:Transliteration (Template:Lang)Template:Snd"Gentile head," someone who doesn't think ahead, an idiot.<ref name="Rosten2010"/><ref name="Schorr2017">Template:Cite web</ref>
• Template:Transliteration (Template:Lang)Template:SndPleasures or pursuits only a gentile would enjoy.<ref name="Silow-Carroll2019">Template:Cite web</ref>
• Template:Transliteration (Template:Lang)Template:SndExclamation of exasperation used "when endurance is exhausted, kindliness depleted, the effort to understand useless".<ref name="Cole1988">Template:Cite book</ref>

Several authors have opined on whether the word is derogatory. Dan Friedman, executive director of The Forward in "What 'Goy' Means, And Why I Keep Using It" writes that it can be used as an insult but that the word is not offensive.<ref name="TheForward2017">Template:Cite web</ref> He compares it to the word "foreigners" which Americans can use dismissively but which isn't a derogatory word.<ref name="TheForward2017"/> Similarly, Jews for Racial and Economic Justice (JFREJ) has stated that "goy" is "Not an insult, just kinda sounds like it."<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Rebecca Einstein Schorr argues that the word has an established pejorative overtone. She refers to the observation "the goyishe groomsmen were all drunk and bawdy; of course, you'd never see that at a Jewish wedding" and "goyishe kop" where the word is used in a pejorative sense. She admits that the word can have non-pejorative uses, such as "goyishe restaurant" - one that doesn't serve kosher food - but contends that the word is "neutral, at best, and extremely offensive, at worst." She advocates that the Jewish community stop using the word "goy."<ref name="Schorr2017"/> Andrew Silow Carroll writes:<ref name="Silow-Carroll2019"/>

Nahma Nadich, deputy director of the Jewish Community Relations of Greater Boston writes:

adding<ref name="Silow-Carroll2019"/>

In antisemitism

According to the Southern Poverty Law Center, white supremacists have ironically used the term "goy" in reference to themselves as a signal of their belief in conspiracy theories about Jews.<ref name=SPLC /> For example, a Hungarian antisemitic motorcycle association refers to themselves as the Goyim riders,<ref name=Molnar /> and in 2020 Kyle Chapman tried to rename the far-right group the Proud Boys to the Proud Goys.<ref name=JPost1 />

In a similar vein, the far-right American Traditionalist Worker Party, in 2017, created the crowdfunding platform called GoyFundMe, a wordplay on the popular crowdfunding platform GoFundMe.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

The Goyim Defense League (GDL) and its website, GoyimTV, are another example.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Europol's 2021 report on Terrorism Situations and Trends discusses the German Goyim Partei Deutschland ('Goyim Party Germany'), "a right-wing extremist organisation" founded in 2016 which "used its website to publish antisemitic and racist texts, pictures and videos."<ref name=Europol>Template:Cite web</ref>

The slur is also featured in the far-right catchphrase or meme The Goyim Know, Shut It Down associated with Neo-Nazis on online forums like the 4chan and 8chan. In this context, the "speaker" assumes the role of a "panicking Jew" who reacts to an event that would reveal Jewish "manipulations" or Jewish "deceitfulness".<ref name=ADL1 />

According to the Anti-Defamation League, the antisemitic meme first appeared on 4chan in 2013.<ref name= ADL1>Template:Cite web</ref> Einstein Schorr called the meme an instance of "linguistic appropriation" whereby Neo-Nazis cynically incorporated "pseudo-Yiddish phrases" into their vocabulary to ridicule Jews. Schorr describes that as a way to propagate the "anti-Semitic myth that we are a cabal with our own secret language and agenda."<ref name="Schorr2017"/><ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

The Anti-Defamation League further deciphers the catchphrase,<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

See also

• Gentile
• Ger toshav
• Giaour
• Kafir

External links

• Template:Wiktionary-inline