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Comment by dotancohen | Hacker News Reader

  > the term kosher applies directly to food, not
  > technology; this is a metaphor

Kosher means "fit for purpose" and is often used for items other than food. For one example, during the Sukot holiday it is customary to erect and eat in tents. Due to shody construction and safety issues, not to mention adherence to biblical prescription of certain tent features, there exist "kosher" tents which one can buy and know that it is fit for purpose.

Source: דובר עברית

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Yeah, here's the thing: I'll happily use it that way when I'm talking with other Jews.

But most of the world is goyim, and an awful lot of people don't know what they're talking about. They hear "kosher phone" and immediately their minds turn to wondering if there are phones that Jews can't use. I have been asked on multiple occasions if I only buy kosher pickles, and once whether it was cultural appropriation for non-Jews to buy kosher salt.

So when someone decides to label a phone as kosher, I think an explanatory note is in order. There are no halachic requirements for phones that don't also apply to lights and fireplaces.

>But most of the world is goyim

I doubt you meant to use it this way, but that word is seen by many as an offensive slur against non-Jews. It's frequently used in a way that has racist and derogatory undertones. Googling "goyim" returns some colorful results.

Googling "Jew" returns, or did in the past, some colorful results. Humans gonna human.

I have never used or heard "goyim" used in a way which meant anything other than "everybody in the world who does not think of themselves as Jewish".

I suppose one could use it derogatorily, but that's not my experience.

I assure you that context is everything. When Jews say "Jews", we just mean Jews. And when lots of goyim say "Jews", they mean "sub-human monsters".

Please feel free to censor your own language. And if you see me use "goyim" to be offensive, feel free to call me out on that.

I'm glad you've never heard "goyim" used in a derogatory manner, whereas I have. Tone is difficult to infer from plain text. To avoid confusion, I recommend you use other groups and races' preferred labels when speaking about them in public. This is advice I follow and have found to be a good rule.

Just so you know I'm not making this up; Merriam-Webster lists "goy" as "sometimes disparaging":

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/goy

Use of this word in 2017 got Huffington Post in trouble with the Anti-Defamation League, and others who felt it was over the line:

https://jewishnews.timesofisrael.com/huffpost-bannon-headlin...

I agree that HuffPo chose the wrong term there. There's nothing particularly apropos about Bannon not being Jewish, and HuffPo is not a Jewish organization.

I repeat: feel free to call out people who are being derogatory, no matter what the term. Banning words regardless of context hurts everyone.

so this is my critique of you here. You are talking about the need to "code switch" in terms of talking "jewish" and talking "english". i.e. "kosher" when one talks "jewish" can mean one thing, but when one talks "english" it generally about food. But then, you don't code switch about "goyim" when it should be simply "non-jews" if one is trying to speak "english". And this is where the concept can be insulting. if one is claiming one is speaking english, using the word goyim isn't simply saying "non jews", its about othering them. i.e. you are purposefully not code switching (or am, depending on one's POV) that term. That can be problematic.

I'd also disagree that kosher just means food in plain english. Plenty of non jews are known to say "that's not kosher" (i.e. as in "not right") in things that have nothing to do with food.

What does halachic mean?

ha-lacha is "the law", specifically religious law. halachic, then, is "with respect to Jewish law".

The equivalent in Islam is sharia and fiqh.

The equivalent in Catholicism is called canon law.

Small correction. "Ha-lacha" would be "the phlegm". "Halacha" (without the separation of the leading "ha") is "the (proper) way (to act)".

"Ha lecha" would mean "the phlegm". "Ha lacha" could mean "the moist", but I think GP tried to use the apostrophe to lengthen the first syllable in the single word "halacha" so it would read HAlacha and not haLAcha.

Good source, an even better source is the very first Mishna in Tractate Sukkah [0] which uses the Hebrew form of the word kosher several times to refer to a Sukka. It's used as both an adjective ("כשרה") and a verb ("מכשירין" - using the Aramaic form of pluralization).

Interestingly, the opposite of kosher in this mishna is פסול, which I'd translate as "invalid".

Also interesting is the apparent relationship between the word כשר and the modern Hebrew מכשיר, meaning "device", or "thing that does something specific".

Edit: took me another moment to realize the root is used a lot in modern Hebrew, such as in the word כושר (ironically pronounced like the English kosher), which means (physical) fitness.

[0] https://he.m.wikisource.org/wiki/%D7%9E%D7%A9%D7%A0%D7%94_%D...

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