R. Elie Kaunfer on Parashat Ki Teitzei: Are Gerim Treated Differently in Prayer?

Jewish identity is irreducibly made up of both religious and ethnic components. One of the situations where this complexity comes to the fore is for converts (or in Hebrew: gerim ), people who become Jewish but do not necessarily have ethnic Jewish ancestors. And yet, our liturgy is full of references to the “God of our ancestors” and similar formulations assuming an ethnically Jewish background. How should Jews by choice interact with a liturgy that assumes, at least sometimes, that those who recite it are Jews by birth?