In the morning blessings (ברכות השחר) of traditional congregations, men read "שלא עשני גוי."
According to the rabbi, in some non-traditional congregations, men read "שעשני ישראל."
According to the rabbi, the second version is not an option; it is not "acceptable." I'm not sure of the rabbi's source; perhaps Ben Ish Hai.
It seems to me that the latter - the non-traditional version - is the better of the two.
Why?
First, some words about the word "goy."
Goy means nation and many times in the Torah - the Final Authority - we, Jews, are referred to as "goy." To cite just two well-known instances:
G-d promises Abraham to make his progeny a "goy gadol" (לך לך, בראשית י''ב ב')
G-d tells us we are a "goy kadosh," a holy nation. (יתרו, שמות י''ט ו')
According to a Wikipedia entry (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goy), the word "goy and its variants" appear more than 550 times in the Torah.
It wasn't until the luminaries of the Talmuds that "goy" begin referring to non-Jews.
The word nokre (נוכרי) is the word for a non-Jew, literally a "foreigner."
It's interesting to note that at one time אם הארץ meant community leaders, not as it does now, simpletons and uneducated people.
Second, what about converts, גרי צדק ? While a convert who leads a service is to read "שלא עשני גוי," a convert hardly can recite those words privately since HaShem did make the convert a נוכר. It might be argued that HaShem moved the person's heart to convert, but in the context of the whole, that doesn't work.
ברכות השחר are not inviolable. Neither is the amedah; proof is comparing the Sefardi/Mizrachi version with the standard Ashkenazi version. Where we have two distinct paragraphs dealing with weather - ברכנו" בקיץ ו"ברך עלינו" בחרף - the Ashkenazi has one paragraph with a few words swapped out depending upon the season. For the record, if an Ashkenazi is heading services for an Sefardi/Mizrachi minyan, he reads the Sefardi/Mizrachi version (just as an Ashkenazi cohen is obliged to bless the congregation during morning services). Equally, a Sefardi/Mizrachi leading services for an Ashkenazi congregation reads the Ashkenazi version of the amedah.
The "bottom line" for me is that it matters less WHAT is said than that the prayers are said.
