Page from Yiddish-Hebrew-Latin-German dictionary by Elijah Levita

modern Hebrew Modern Hebrew (, or ), also known as Israeli Hebrew or simply Hebrew, is the Standard language, standard form of the Hebrew language spoken today. It is the only surviving Canaanite language, as well as one of the List of languages by first w ...

and

Yiddish Yiddish, historically Judeo-German, is a West Germanic language historically spoken by Ashkenazi Jews. It originated in 9th-century Central Europe, and provided the nascent Ashkenazi community with a vernacular based on High German fused with ...

, (; , pl: , or ) is a term for a

gentile ''Gentile'' () is a word that today usually means someone who is not Jewish. Other groups that claim Israelite heritage, notably Mormons, have historically used the term ''gentile'' to describe outsiders. More rarely, the term is used as a synony ...

, a non-

Jew Jews (, , ), or the Jewish people, are an ethnoreligious group and nation, originating from the Israelites of ancient Israel and Judah. They also traditionally adhere to Judaism. Jewish ethnicity, religion, and community are highly inte ...

. Through Yiddish, the word has been adopted into English (pl: goyim or goys) also to mean "gentile", sometimes in a pejorative sense. The

Biblical Hebrew Biblical Hebrew ( or ), also called Classical Hebrew, is an archaic form of the Hebrew language, a language in the Canaanite languages, Canaanitic branch of the Semitic languages spoken by the Israelites in the area known as the Land of Isra ...

word ''goy'' has been commonly translated into English as ''

nation A nation is a type of social organization where a collective Identity (social science), identity, a national identity, has emerged from a combination of shared features across a given population, such as language, history, ethnicity, culture, t ...

'', 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, ''goy'' is used to describe both the Nation of Israel and other nations. As a word principally used by Jews to describe non-Jews, it is a term for the ethnic out-group.It is sometimes compared to similar terms in other cultures such as the Japanese word '' Gaijin'' or the Arabic ''

Ajam (, ) is an Arabic word for a non-Arab, especially a Persian. It was historically used as a pejorative—figuratively ascribing muteness to those whose native language is not Arabic—during and after the Muslim conquest of Iran. Since the ea ...

.'' The meaning of the word ''goy'' in Hebrew evolved to mean "non-Jew" in the

Hellenistic In classical antiquity, the Hellenistic period covers the time in Greek history after Classical Greece, between the death of Alexander the Great in 323 BC and the death of Cleopatra VII in 30 BC, which was followed by the ascendancy of the R ...

(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 supremacist White supremacy is the belief that white people are superior to those of other races. The belief favors the maintenance and defense of any power and privilege held by white people. White supremacy has roots in the now-discredited doctrine ...

s to refer to themselves when signaling a belief in

conspiracy theories A conspiracy theory is an explanation for an event or situation that asserts the existence of a conspiracy (generally by powerful sinister groups, often political in motivation), when other explanations are more probable.Additional sources: * ...

about Jews.

Hebrew Bible

The word means "nation" in

. In the

Torah The Torah ( , "Instruction", "Teaching" or "Law") is the compilation of the first five books of the Hebrew Bible, namely the books of Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy. The Torah is also known as the Pentateuch () ...

, and its variants appear 560 times in reference to both the

Israelite Israelites were a Hebrew language, Hebrew-speaking ethnoreligious group, consisting of tribes that lived in Canaan during the Iron Age. Modern scholarship describes the Israelites as emerging from indigenous Canaanites, Canaanite populations ...

s and the non-Israelite nations. The first recorded usage of ''goyim'' occurs in and applies to non-Israelite nations. The first mention of ''goy'' in relation to the Israelites comes in , when God promises

Abraham Abraham (originally Abram) is the common Hebrews, Hebrew Patriarchs (Bible), patriarch of the Abrahamic religions, including Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. In Judaism, he is the founding father who began the Covenant (biblical), covenanta ...

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 Guti (), also known by the derived exonyms Gutians or Guteans, were a people of the ancient Near East who both appeared and disappeared during the Bronze Age. Their homeland was known as Gutium ( Sumerian: , ''GutūmKI'' or , ''GutiumKI''). ...

. The other is in , where a “King of Goyim in Gilgal” is included in the list of kings slain by

Joshua Joshua ( ), also known as Yehoshua ( ''Yəhōšuaʿ'', Tiberian Hebrew, Tiberian: ''Yŏhōšuaʿ,'' Literal translation, lit. 'Yahweh is salvation'), Jehoshua, or Josue, functioned as Moses' assistant in the books of Book of Exodus, Exodus and ...

. 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 Throughout history, various groups of people have considered themselves to be the chosen people of a deity, for a particular purpose. The phenomenon of "chosen people" is well known among the Israelites and Jews, where the term () refers to the ...

in the Hebrew Bible, and popular among Jewish scholars is , or "a unique nation upon the earth" ( and )

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 The Hebrew Bible or Tanakh (;"Tanach"
. '' Tyndale Bible and the 1611

King James Version The King James Version (KJV), also the King James Bible (KJB) and the Authorized Version (AV), is an Early Modern English Bible translations, Early Modern English translation of the Christianity, Christian Bible for the Church of England, wh ...

. The

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 The New American Standard Bible (NASB, also simply NAS for "New American Standard") is a translation of the Bible in contemporary English. Published by the Lockman Foundation, the complete NASB was released in 1971. New revisions were publis ...

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 The Hebrew Bible or Tanakh (;"Tanach"
. '' Hellenistic Period In classical antiquity, the Hellenistic period covers the time in Greek history after Classical Greece, between the death of Alexander the Great in 323 BC and the death of Cleopatra VII in 30 BC, which was followed by the ascendancy of the R ...

(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 Paul may refer to: People * Paul (given name), a given name, including a list of people * Paul (surname), a list of people * Paul the Apostle, an apostle who wrote many of the books of the New Testament * Ray Hildebrand, half of the singing duo ...

, 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 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 ''Gentile'' () is a word that today usually means someone who is not Jewish. Other groups that claim Israelite heritage, notably Mormons, have historically used the term ''gentile'' to describe outsiders. More rarely, the term is used as a synony ...

). The twelfth century Jewish scholar

Maimonides Moses ben Maimon (1138–1204), commonly known as Maimonides (, ) and also referred to by the Hebrew acronym Rambam (), was a Sephardic rabbi and Jewish philosophy, philosopher who became one of the most prolific and influential Torah schola ...

defines ''goy'' in his

Mishneh Torah The ''Mishneh Torah'' (), also known as ''Sefer Yad ha-Hazaka'' (), is a code of Rabbinic Jewish religious law (''halakha'') authored by Maimonides (Rabbi Moshe ben Maimon/Rambam). The ''Mishneh Torah'' was compiled between 1170 and 1180 CE ( ...

as a worshipper of idolatry, as he explains, "Whenever we refer to a gentile oywithout any further description, we mean one who worships false deities". Maimonides saw Christians as idolators (because of concepts like the

Trinity The Trinity (, from 'threefold') is the Christian doctrine concerning the nature of God, which defines one God existing in three, , consubstantial divine persons: God the Father, God the Son (Jesus Christ) and God the Holy Spirit, thr ...

) but not Muslims who he saw as more strictly monotheistic.

As a pejorative

Goy can be used in a derogatory manner. The

lexicographer

Leo Rosten Leo Calvin Rosten (Yiddish: ; April 11, 1908 – February 19, 1997) was an American writer and humorist in the fields of scriptwriting, storywriting, journalism, and Yiddish lexicography. Early life Rosten was born into a Yiddish-speaking famil ...

in ''The New Joys of Yiddish'' defines goy as someone who is non-Jewish or someone who is dull, insensitive, or heartless. Goy also occurs in many pejorative Yiddish expressions: * ()Something only a goy would do or is capable of doing. * ()"A goy stays a goy," or, less literally, according to Rosten, "What did you expect? Once an anti-Semite always an anti-Semite." * ()"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 ''The Forward'' (), formerly known as ''The Jewish Daily Forward'', is an American news media organization for a Jewish American audience. Founded in 1897 as a Yiddish-language daily socialist newspaper, ''The New York Times'' reported that Set ...

'' 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. 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 "goy" is "Not an insult, just kinda sounds like it." 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." Andrew Silow Carroll writes: Nahma Nadich, deputy director of the Jewish Community Relations of Greater Boston writes: adding

In antisemitism

According to the

Southern Poverty Law Center The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) is an American 501(c)(3) nonprofit legal advocacy organization specializing in civil rights and public interest litigation. Based in Montgomery, Alabama, it is known for its legal cases against white ...

, white supremacists have ironically used the term "goy" 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 The Proud Boys is an American far-right politics, far-right, Neo-fascism, neo-fascist militant organization that promotes and engages in political violence.Far-right: * * Fascist: * * * * * Men only: * * * Political violence and militancy: ...

to the Proud Goys. In a similar vein, the

far-right Far-right politics, often termed right-wing extremism, encompasses a range of ideologies that are marked by ultraconservatism, authoritarianism, ultranationalism, and nativism. This political spectrum situates itself on the far end of the ...

American Traditionalist Worker Party, in 2017, created the

crowdfunding Crowdfunding is the practice of funding a project or venture by raising money from a large number of people, typically via the internet. Crowdfunding is a form of crowdsourcing and Alternative Finance, alternative finance, to fund projects "withou ...

platform called GoyFundMe, a wordplay on the popular crowdfunding platform

GoFundMe GoFundMe is an American for-profit crowdfunding platform that allows people to raise money for events ranging from life events such as celebrations and graduations to challenging circumstances like accidents and illnesses. From 2010 to the ...

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

Europol Europol, officially the European Union Agency for Law Enforcement Cooperation, is the law enforcement agency of the European Union (EU). Established in 1998, it is based in The Hague, Netherlands, and serves as the central hub for coordinating c ...

's 2021 report on ''Terrorism Situations and Trends'' discusses the German ''Goyim Partei Deutschland'' ('Goyim Party Germany'), "a

right-wing extremist Far-right politics, often termed right-wing extremism, encompasses a range of ideologies that are marked by ultraconservatism, authoritarianism, ultranationalism, and nativism. This political spectrum situates itself on the far end of the ...

organisation" founded in 2016 which "used its website to publish antisemitic and

racist Racism is the belief that groups of humans possess different behavioral traits corresponding to inherited attributes and can be divided based on the superiority of one Race (human categorization), race or ethnicity over another. It may also me ...

texts, pictures and videos." The slur is also featured in the far-right

catchphrase A catchphrase (alternatively spelled catch phrase) is a phrase or expression recognized by its repeated utterance. Such phrases often originate in popular culture and in the arts, and typically spread through word of mouth and a variety of mass ...

meme A meme (; ) is an idea, behavior, or style that Mimesis, spreads by means of imitation from person to person within a culture and often carries symbolic meaning representing a particular phenomenon or theme. A meme acts as a unit for carrying c ...

The Goyim Know, Shut It Down associated with

Neo-Nazis Neo-Nazism comprises the post–World War II militant, social, and political movements that seek to revive and reinstate Nazi ideology. Neo-Nazis employ their ideology to promote hatred and racial supremacy (often white supremacy), to att ...

on online forums like the

4chan 4chan is an anonymous English-language imageboard website. Launched by Christopher "moot" Poole in October 2003, the site hosts boards dedicated to a wide variety of topics, from video games and television to literature, cooking, weapons, mu ...

and 8chan. In this context, the "speaker" assumes the role of a "panicking

" 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-

phrases" into their vocabulary to ridicule

Jews Jews (, , ), or the Jewish people, are an ethnoreligious group and nation, originating from the Israelites of History of ancient Israel and Judah, ancient Israel and Judah. They also traditionally adhere to Judaism. Jewish ethnicity, rel ...

. 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,

References

External links

* {{Authority control Ethno-cultural designations Exonyms Hebrew words and phrases in the Hebrew Bible Jewish culture Judaism terminology Yiddish words and phrases Religious slurs for people Linguistic controversies Antisemitic tropes Pejorative terms for strangers and foreigners Judaism-related controversies