Oy-yoi-yoi!
Vey iz mir.
As if we don’t have enough worries, now the cancel cabal is gunning for us Yids.
The word goy, they say, iz farbotn.
Where to start? Maybe with the word Zionist?
A Zionist is someone who believes in our homeland, our people, our heroes that bring us such naches. They have chutzpah, our lions in Israel.
But did you know– it’s racist to call yourself a Zionist these days? It’s “white supremacy” to carve a little something out of the dribs and drabs they – finally – let us have again? We don’t belong in Israel, they say.
Where do they think we belong, these big geniuses?
As if that wasn’t bad enough, now they’re going after a big shot word of ours: goy for singular, goyim for plural, and never forget, goyisher – spat again and again in a shtick. Pfui!
And who can we thank for all this attention to our words? Maybe a little bit Jeffrey Epstein, a shande fur die goyim.
People with nothing better to do are digging up every stinky piece of dreck from that man’s emails. And then, they point to us.
Take this schmuck called Clandestine on X. (No, take him, please.)
“If you think Epstein was just some rich pedo, you’re missing the big picture,” Clandestine yaps. “Epstein was part of the satanic global elite that pull the strings from the shadows. Epstein was a Deep State puppet master.”
Enough already.
And that brings us to the mishegoss lately over the words goy and goyim. Because that man, that Jeffrey Epstein (May I never have to say his name again.) talks about goy and goyim in a few of his emails, these idiots online are having such a kanipshin over it all, and then, of course, what happens next? They start kvetching about how we Jews think we are the Chosen People and better than the rest and all that mishegoss.
Chosen, schmosen. Chosen for what? To be harassed all the time?
And the latest, let me tell you what: We even have Members of the Tribe saying, “maybe we shouldn’t call goyim goyim.”
You don’t believe me? On my honor, this was my conversation from just yesterday. This woman, this schmendrik, tells me to keep my goy to myself because the goyim think we think that we are better than them. You get all that?
It’s pouring oil on fire, making people hate us, she says.
Look, I say to her, our words aren’t the problem. If you want to beat a dog, you’ll find a stick. They always do.
Let’s start from the beginning, The word goy and its mishpocha leave footprints all over the Torah (or as the goyimsay, the Bible). And what does this scary word mean? It means “nation.” Look it up. I’m not wrong.
But, over the centuries, has goy taken on an edge, a little zetz? Like when you see your nephew skydiving and bungee jumping with his shiksa and you say, “Why would you waste your time on that goyishe naches?”
Is that an insult? Is herring a fish?
It’s Yiddish. What do you think?
We’re talking about Yiddish, not some fancy-schmancy language. No, Yiddish is a mutt, a mishmash, a linguistic goulash. Was it slapped together from the scraps of German and Hebrew and other languages as we were thrown from country to country? Of course it was.
They want to stop Yiddish from being Yiddish, do I have that right?
Yiddish – Sewn from suffering, threaded with spite and grit, molded in shtetl mud, whispered in ghetto-speak. That Yiddish?
The language of Tevye the Dairyman lamenting his life, heartbreak, and poverty.
The language of disgusted sighs and single word grunts. Feh!
The language where even the punctuation marks are complaining.
They want to stop Yiddish from being Yiddish? They should all be turned into a single blintze, and a cat should eat them.
Yiddish, the language that crawled from the ashes of the Holocaust, half-dead, half-alive, and choking on itself, still, somehow, cracking, “Man plans. G-d laughs.”
The language of bitter laughs and bubbe with babka and brisket.
The language with schnook, schmo, schlub, and schmegeggy.
Yiddish, the language that targets everyone for insults and mockery, and nobody escapes, not Jews, not goyim, not even your mother. Especially your mother. Oy, what a mother you have. Fat people, too, targets. Not that your mother is fat, but maybe she could lose a pound or two.
Me, I’m not giving up one single Yiddish word, not without a fight.
I understand. Really, I do. The goyim have such tender, goyishe feelings, but maybe G-d could give them bigger things to worry about than us? Or maybe they could toughen up and leave our words to us.
They want to stop Yiddish from being Yiddish and Jews from being Jews?
May they grow ten livers and sweat in the snow and may they eat Jell-O and cheeseburgers until their gall bladders explode.
________
Anna Stolley Persky, a journalist and lawyer by background, has been published in The Washington Post, Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine, Mystery Tribune, and Pithead Chapel. She is the 2025 winner of the Mystery Writers of America’s Robert L. Fish Memorial Award for best first mystery story.