Goyim riders are members of the Goyim Motorcycle Association (Hungarian: Gój Motoros Egyesület), an anti-Gypsy and

antisemitic Antisemitism (also spelled anti-semitism or anti-Semitism) is hostility to, prejudice towards, or discrimination against Jews. A person who holds such positions is called an antisemite. Antisemitism is considered to be a form of racism. Antis ...

Hungarian ultra-nationalist political movement.

Etymology

The name is rooted in the

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

word

goy In modern Hebrew and Yiddish (, he, גוי, regular plural , or ) is a term for a gentile, a non-Jew. Through Yiddish, the word has been adopted into English (pluralised as goys or goyim) also to mean gentile, sometimes with a pejorative se ...

meaning "a

people A person (plural, : people) is a being that has certain capacities or attributes such as reason, morality, consciousness or self-consciousness, and being a part of a culturally established form of social relations such as kinship, ownership of pr ...

or "a

nation A nation is a community of people formed on the basis of a combination of shared features such as language, history, ethnicity, culture and/or society. A nation is thus the collective identity of a group of people understood as defined by those ...

." A term that shifted in

Yiddish Yiddish (, or , ''yidish'' or ''idish'', , ; , ''Yidish-Taytsh'', ) is a West Germanic language historically spoken by Ashkenazi Jews. It originated during the 9th century in Central Europe, providing the nascent Ashkenazi community with a ver ...

and

modern Hebrew Modern Hebrew ( he, עברית חדשה, ''ʿivrít ḥadašá ', , '' lit.'' "Modern Hebrew" or "New Hebrew"), also known as Israeli Hebrew or Israeli, and generally referred to by speakers simply as Hebrew ( ), is the standard form of the He ...

to refer to a non-Jew, sometimes pejoratively. A "a series of philological essays in the premier weekly of the Hungarian liberal literati,

Élet és Irodalom ''Élet és Irodalom'' (also known as ''ÉS''; meaning ''Life and Literature'' in English) is a weekly Hungarian magazine about literature and politics. History and profile ''Élet és Irodalom'' was first published as a literary magazine on 15 ...

(Life and Literature)" by "distinguished linguists," discussed the reversal in usage by the Goyim riders which turned the out-group definition into an in-group definition.

History and membership

The group was informally established by 2000, and organized as a non-profit civic association in 2006.Molnár, V. (2016) Civil society, radicalism and the rediscovery of mythic nationalism. Nations and Nationalism, 22: 165–185. doi: 10.1111/nana.12126. The group is prosperous, as the ability to afford an expensive, often imported, motorcycle is beyond the means of most working-class Hungarians, and includes prominent figures in business and sports.

Ideology

The group's emblem shows an armed Magyar warrior shooting arrows as he rides a powerful motorcycle, the figure of the warrior superimposed on a map of the pre-World War I

Kingdom of Hungary The Kingdom of Hungary was a monarchy in Central Europe that existed for nearly a millennium, from the Middle Ages into the 20th century. The Principality of Hungary emerged as a Christian kingdom upon the coronation of the first king Stephen ...

, including the lands lost when Hungary lost that war.

Activities

The riders organize group rides through towns where Gypsys are accused of committing crimes, rides that are non-violent but perceived as veiled threats. In 2013 a controversy arose concerning plans by to hold a ride on Holocaust Memorial Day under the banner of "Step on the gas!". This less than subtle attempt at provocation was soon condemned by the

Fidesz Fidesz – Hungarian Civic Alliance (; hu, Fidesz – Magyar Polgári Szövetség) is a right-wing populist and national-conservative political party in Hungary, led by Viktor Orbán. It was formed in 1988 under the name of Alliance of Young ...

party as well as the Goyim riders, the latter were originally believed to have been the driving force behind the initiative which was described as "tasteless".Hungary’s Busiest Firefighter
''TOL'', 16 April 2013

References

{{Hungarian far right Hungarian nationalism 2000 establishments in Hungary Outlaw motorcycle clubs Clubs and societies in Hungary