Should we censor the term "goy" when used in English to mean "gentile"?

Question

The word "goy", used in an English context, can mean:

1. "Gentile" - colloquially and innocuously

2. "Gentile" - as a disparaging slur

(It can also mean "Nation" generically and innocuously in a Hebrew context.)

Given that the disparaging usage is, in fact, found ("matzui") in the wild and is, in fact, offensive, should we censor use of this term in an English context to mean "gentile" on Mi Yodeya, even when it's meant innocuously? I fear that some readers may get the wrong idea about our community, be offended, or feel unwelcome if they see a term in our content that's often used as a slur in the wild, and I think that "gentile" can be substituted with no loss of meaning in virtually all cases.

If you think censorship is appropriate, which of the following should it apply to?

• Question titles

• Question and Answer bodies

• Comments

• Chat messages

Answer 1

I agree that, for the reason you mention in the question, users should avoid goy (and goyim and goys) except in transliterated passages. This is true in titles, questions, answers, and comments. (I'm not as concerned about chat messages, which are very ephemeral and mostly for site devotees.) Unless there will be a loss in meaning (e.g., as Jon Ericson mentions in a comment on the question, gentile is ambiguous when discussing Mormonism on a Jewish site) or readability (which can include e.g. cadence), I think it should be changed to gentile or non-Jew. If there will be such a loss, then, since no insult is intended and the word has a common non-pejorative meaning within the Jewish community, I think it can be left as is.

Answer 2

I'm a goy, and I can assure you that the vast majority of goyim have no idea what it means¹, or that there is a possible pejorative aspect to the word. My mother is happy to call herself a former Shabbos Goy.

If you're worried about people taking it as a pejorative term, I don't think that will be an issue - most goyim don't know what the word means.

If you're concerned about people using it in a pejorative sense, that is a different matter. There are plenty of other terms that can be used in a pejorative manner, and it isn't the word itself that is a problem, it's the mindset behind it. You could use the word "Christian" in a pejorative sense (and I have seen instances of this already).

By way of comparison, the word "Jew" can be used in a neutral, categorical sense (e.g., "the most familiar religious groups in the world are the Jews, Christians, Muslims, Buddhists, and Hindus"), a positive, sense (e.g., "the Jews are the chosen people"), or a negative sense (e,g., everything that the Nazis said about Jews).

On a similar note, the word "gentile" was originally pejorative, meaning "pagan, heathen", but it can now be used in a neutral, pejorative, or positive sense. The intent and context determines how the word should be taken.

Prohibiting the use of a specific word isn't going to prevent bigoted remarks. The only way to do that is to prohibit displays of bigotry.

I've been using the word "non-Jews" to describe everyone who isn't Jewish, but I don't see any reason not to say "Goy". Words only become a problem when the intent behind them is hostile.

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¹ I just asked everyone in the Mos Eisley chat room if they knew what "Goy" means. None of the 6 people there had any idea what it meant.

Answer 3

I think non-Jew is more specific in meaning than either Goy or Gentile, and therefore it should be used. As you can see from the other answers, Goy can also mean nation, and Gentile can also mean non-Mormon, as well as several different things depending on which way you understand the derivation of the word from Latin, Old French, and Middle English.

Answer 4

personally, I'm often offended by the word "Gentile." Note from the AHD discussion of the word how its reference to non-Jews really develops from its meaning as "noble" and later, to "all from a certain group" thus, it is applied to all who are not Jews as the Jews would not be noble or courteous.

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Word History: French not only gave us hundreds of words, it sometimes gave us the same word more than once. A prime example is Old French gentil, “high-born, noble.” In the early 1200s, this was borrowed into Middle English and spelled as gentile, which later developed to mean “having the character of a nobleman, courteous,” and, by the 1500s, “soft, mild.” After some changes in spelling, the result was Modern English gentle. French gentil was borrowed again into English at the end of the 16th century, also in the spelling gentile and meaning “well-bred, belonging to or appropriate to the gentry.” In the ensuing century it came also to mean “courteous, elegant,” and continues to do so today as the word genteel. Since the spelling gentile did not accurately represent the word's French pronunciation, in the 17th century some people wrote it jantee or janty. This word took on a life of its own: while it originally meant “well-bred,” by the 1670s it meant “easy or unconcerned in manner,” and thence “spritely, lively, brisk.” Thus was born jaunty. The French gentil that spawned these words comes from Latin gentīlis, which meant simply “belonging to (the same) gēns or family.” It is from the original Latin meaning that we get the modern word gentile, borrowed in the 14th century (again through French) meaning, essentially, “belonging to the same family as all non-Jews.”

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http://www.yourdictionary.com/jaunty

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OK, maybe I'm playing devil's advocate, but a word carries with it the baggage that the recipient imports also.

Answer 5

It's actually from the bible originally in Genesis 12:2 (I believe it's the first use).

It says "V'Ehshcha L'Goy Gadol, V'Avarechacha V'Agadlah Shemecha V'Hayah Beracha" literally translaterd "And I will make you a great nation, and I will bless you, and I will make your name big(or great), and it will be a blessing." I believe that's the first recorded use of the word. Goy means nation. We use the term today to mean other nations.

We use the word "Am" generally which also means nation to describe the Israelites or what you now call Jews, as in "Am Yisroel" or Nation of Israel.

Goy is really a hebrew term not a Yiddish term. Yiddish came much later, thousands of years later, when the Europeans wouldn't allow Jews to speak Hebrew so they made up a language that is mostly German, some Russian, and some Hebrew.

There are several derogatory terms for non-Jews in Yiddish, but I'm not going to state them here because that's not nice. Goy is not a derogatory term, it's just a term.

I guess if you screamed out "that f'n goy cut me off" while driving it could be, but you could insert almost any term in it's place and it would be offensive in that context.

So you want to ban a word that god used to describe Abraham's lineage in one of his greatest blessings in a religious discussion forum?

Hmm...seems a little PC, actually I'm not sure if that's even PC, it's more, maybe, ignorance of the term?

And Wad Cheber I was in the chat room, you said, "does anybody know except JMFB?", lol.

Banning words especially one like this is pretty ridiculous. My answer is no, do not ban the term.

Answer 6

B"H

The problem with the answers claiming that it's "not nice" to use words like goy etc., is that the Torah itself (Talmud, Rambam, other poskim etc. and even many pesukim) refer to non-jews as goyim (or akum in some censored editions of Rambam, for example).

These works are written either with direct prophecy, or at least ruach hakodesh, Divine Inspiration, and have been accepted by all of the People of Yisroel.

If the Creator of heavens and Earth truly thought it wasn't nice to use the term "goy", then He wouldn't have Divinely Inspired His people to use that term, and He wouldn't have allowed those works to become accepted by all of Yisroel.

If it was offensive, G-d Himself wouldn't have allowed it to be used. The fact that He did, means that we shouldn't question G-d's choices.

Of course this is all based on the understanding that the Talmud, Rambam etc. are all Divinely Inspired works and part of the Torah (as well as the Torah verses that mention "goy"/"goyim").

If one is having difficulty with that understanding, then that is a different discussion.