Image: Wooden letters spelling “WORD.” Art by exopixel/shutterstock.
There are some words in Hebrew or Yiddish that I don’t use ever.
I’ve written about one of them in Who are You Calling Shiksa? – it’s a nasty, unfriendly word, and no amount of “reclaiming” will fix it.
Another such word is shaygitz. It means “varmint,” or “rascal” and it is distinctly unfriendly.
Like shiksa, shaygitz has its roots in the Hebrew word sheketz, meaning “abominable,” “filth,” or “blemish.”
My colleague Rabbi Rebecca Einstein Schorr pointed out to me today that the word goy needs to join the list. Its original meaning in Biblical Hebrew was innocent, meaning “nation,” or “people,” – there are places in the Torah where it actually refers to the Jews! But it has come to take on a pejorative meaning in Yiddish and even worse, it has been co-opted by white supremacists as a badge of honor for anti-semitic chants, etc. I don’t use the word, and now I will gently correct people who use it to me, even when it’s supposed to be a joke.
Some words can be salvaged. “Queer” is one such word. It had a neutral meaning until someone chose to use it hatefully to taunt LGBTQ folk. We took the word as our own, and defanged it. Shiksa and shaygitz are hateful in their core meaning; they can’t be repurposed without dragging along the stigma.
Goy is a little different. It hasn’t always been used to disparage. I look forward to a day, someday, when we can use the word as Isaiah did:
Lo yisa goy el goy cherev
V’lo Yil’m’du od milchamah!Nation shall not lift up its sword against nation
Neither shall they learn war anymore” – Isaiah 2:4
But for now, not in my vocabulary.
I feel like, without re-co-opting by the Jewish people, “goy” will only continue to be used by white supremacists. Though language development is by no means completely predictable (neither are people, I guess), it’s also important to point out that the white supremacist use of goy is completely different than the Jewish use. Never have I heard another Jew say “a good goy” or “my goys.”
It’s definitely possible that it’s developed two different senses, but if you’re avoiding Yiddish words misappropriated by white supremacists, we’re catering our vocabulary to their whims. And it doesn’t stop at “goy”–I’ve seen instances of “kvetch” and “yenta,” where Yiddishness just adds antisemitic flavour to whatever the original insult being thrown out actually is.