() is a term for a gentile, a non-Jew, sometimes in a pejorative sense. The word, of Hebrew origin, was adopted into English from Yiddish. It carries a similar meaning in Modern Hebrew.

The Biblical Hebrew word has been commonly translated into English as 'nation', 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). In the Bible, is used to describe both the Nation of Israel and other nations.

The meaning of the word 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.

As a word principally used by Jews to describe non-Jews, it is a term for the ethnic out-group. In modern usage in English, the extent to which is derogatory is a point of discussion in the Jewish community.

The word is sometimes used by white supremacists and antisemites to refer to themselves when signaling a belief in antisemitic tropes.

Hebrew Bible

The word means 'nation' in Biblical Hebrew. In the Torah, and its variants appear 560 times in reference to both the Israelites and the non-Israelite nations.

The first recorded usage of occurs in and applies to non-Israelite nations. The first mention of in relation to the Israelites comes in , when God promises Abraham that his descendants will form a ("great nation").

There are two exceptions where a "Kingdom of Goyim" is mentioned. One is in , where it states that the "King of Goyim" was Tidal. Bible commentaries suggest that the term may refer to Gutium. The other is in , where a "King of Goyim in Gilgal" is included in the list of kings slain by Joshua. In all other cases the meaning of is 'nations.'

In , the Israelites are referred to as a , a 'holy nation'. One of the more poetic descriptions of the chosen people in the Hebrew Bible, and popular among Jewish scholars is , or 'a unique nation upon the earth' ( and )

Translations of he-Latngoy in English-language Christian Bibles

In English language Christian bibles, nation has been used as the principal translation for in the Hebrew Bible, from the earliest English language bibles such as the 1530 Tyndale Bible and the 1611 King James Version.

The King James Version of the Bible translates the word / as nation 374 times, heathen 143 times, Gentile 30 times (see Evolution of the Term below) and people 11 times. 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).

Evolution of the term

While the books of the Hebrew Bible often use 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.

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. Ophir and Rosen-Zvi state that the early Jewish convert to Christianity, Paul, was key in developing the concept of to mean non-Jew:

The Latin words / – which also referred to peoples or nations – began to be used to describe non-Jews in parallel with the evolution of the word 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 in his Mishneh Torah as a worshipper of idolatry, as he explains, "Whenever we refer to a gentile [] without any further description, we mean one who worships false deities". Maimonides saw Christians as idolators (because of concepts like the Trinity) but not Muslims who he saw as more strictly monotheistic.

As a derogatory term

can be used in a derogatory manner. The Yiddish lexicographer Leo Rosten in The New Joys of Yiddish defines as someone who is non-Jewish or someone who is dull, insensitive, or heartless. also occurs in many pejorative Yiddish expressions, including:

• ()Something only a goy would do or is capable of doing.

• ()"A goy stays a goy"

• ()"Gentile head," someone who doesn't think ahead, an idiot.

• ()Pleasures or pursuits only a gentile would enjoy.

• ()Exclamation of exasperation used "when endurance is exhausted, kindliness depleted, the effort to understand useless".

Several authors have opined on whether the word is derogatory. Dan Friedman, executive director of The Forward in "What '' Means, And Why I Keep Using It" writes that it can be used as an insult but that the word is not offensive. He compares it to the word "foreigners" which Americans can use dismissively but which isn't a derogatory word. Similarly, Jews for Racial and Economic Justice (JFREJ) has stated that is "Not an insult, just kinda sounds like it." The term , which refers to a non-Jew who performs certain tasks forbidden to Jews on Shabbat, is an example of common usage that, while drawing attention to the binary division of all people into Jews and non-Jews, is not pejorative, and in fact highlights historical cooperation between observant Jews and their friends, neighbors, and colleagues.

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

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

adding

Writer Mike Rothschild linked Jeffrey Epstein's derogatory usage of the word in quotations like "This is the way the jew make money.. and made a fortune in the past ten years„ selling short the shippping[sic] futures„ let the deal in the real world" with a rise in antisemitic conspiracy theories online in the wake of the release of the Epstein files.

In antisemitism

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

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.

The Goyim Defense League (GDL) and its website, GoyimTV, are another example.

Europol's 2021 report on Terrorism Situations and Trends discusses the German (' Party Germany'), "a right-wing extremist organisation" founded in 2016 which "used its website to publish antisemitic and racist texts, pictures and videos."

The term is also featured in the far-right catchphrase or meme "The 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".

According to the Anti-Defamation League, the antisemitic meme first appeared on 4chan in 2013. 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".

The Anti-Defamation League further deciphers the catchphrase,

See also

• Gentile

• Goyslop

• , a non-Romani person

References

External links