Editing Goy (section)

== 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">{{cite book|author=Leo Rosten|title=The New Joys of Yiddish: Completely Updated|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=V04IRE3SwmgC&pg=PA132|date=April 14, 2010|publisher=Potter/Ten Speed/Harmony/Rodale|isbn=978-0-307-56604-1|pages=131–3}}</ref> Goy also occurs in many pejorative Yiddish expressions:

* {{Transliteration|yi|Dos ken nor a goy}} ({{lang|yi|
דאָס קען נאָר אַ גױ}}){{snd}}Something only a goy would do or is capable of doing.<ref name="Rosten2010"/>
* {{Transliteration|yi|A goy blabt a goy}} ({{lang|yi|אַ גױ בלאַבט אַ גױ}}){{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"/>
* {{Transliteration|yi|Goyisher kop}} ({{lang|yi|גױישער קאָפּ}}){{snd}}"Gentile head," someone who doesn't think ahead, an idiot.<ref name="Rosten2010"/><ref name="Schorr2017">{{cite web | last=Schorr | first=Rebecca Einstein | title=Goy: Origin, Usage, and Empowering White Supremacists | website=The Forward | date=August 21, 2017 | url=https://forward.com/life/faith/380684/goyim-origin-goy-usage/ | access-date=December 6, 2020 | archive-date=December 24, 2020 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201224200819/https://forward.com/life/faith/380684/goyim-origin-goy-usage/ | url-status=live }}</ref>
* {{Transliteration|yi|Goyishe naches}} ({{lang|yi|גױישע נחת}}){{snd}}Pleasures or pursuits only a gentile would enjoy.<ref name="Silow-Carroll2019">{{cite web | last=Silow-Carroll | first=Andrew | title=Is 'goy' a slur? | website=Jewish Telegraphic Agency | date=April 22, 2019 | url=https://www.jta.org/2019/04/22/culture/is-goy-a-slur | access-date=December 6, 2020 | archive-date=November 24, 2020 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201124162238/https://www.jta.org/2019/04/22/culture/is-goy-a-slur | url-status=live }}</ref>
* {{Transliteration|yi|A goy!}} ({{lang|yi|!אַ גױ}}){{snd}}Exclamation of exasperation used "when endurance is exhausted, kindliness depleted, the effort to understand useless".<ref name="Cole1988">{{cite book|author=Johnnetta B. Cole|title=Anthropology for the Nineties: Introductory Readings|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=sFCMaloGSTIC&pg=PA62|year=1988|publisher=Simon and Schuster|isbn=978-0-02-906441-2|pages=62–}}</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">{{cite web | title=What 'Goy' Means, And Why I Keep Using It | website=The Forward | date=August 25, 2017 | url=https://forward.com/life/381035/why-i-wont-stop-using-the-term-goy/ | access-date=December 6, 2020 | archive-date=December 23, 2020 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201223071941/https://forward.com/life/381035/why-i-wont-stop-using-the-term-goy/ | url-status=live }}</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>{{cite web|url=https://www.jfrej.org/assets/uploads/JFREJ-Understanding-Antisemitism-November-2017-v1-3-2.pdf |title= Understanding Antisemitism: An Offering to our Movement |publisher=Jews for Racial and Economic Justice |access-date=2022-06-04}}</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"/>

{{Blockquote|text=But the word "goy" has too much historical and linguistic baggage to be used as casually as "non-Jew" or "gentile." It starts with the obvious slurs – like "goyishe kopf," or gentile brains, which suggests (generously) a dullard, or "shikker iz a goy," a gentile is a drunkard. "Goyishe naches" describes the kinds of things that a Jew mockingly presumes only a gentile would enjoy, like hunting, sailing and eating white bread.}}

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

{{Blockquote|text=I definitely see goy as a slur — seldom used as a compliment, and never used in the presence of a non-Jew.}}

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

{{Blockquote|text=That's a good litmus test: if you wouldn't use a word in the presence of someone you're describing, [there is a]  good chance it's offensive.}}