AVRUM'S BLOG is hosted and authored by me, Avrum Rosensweig, the founder and president of Ve'ahavta: The Canadian Jewish Humanitarian & Relief Committee. I am also a writer, artist and a father.
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B'shalom, Avrum (avrum@veahavta.org) 
Recently I wrote an article for the Canadian Jewish News about an experience I had in which a young ultra-Orthodox Jewish child called me a ‘ganif’ – a thief. I said I was deeply disturbed by this because it was clear he was taught from a young age that anyone who is not like him, is ‘bad’ – a ganif. I have gathered other such stories about children who have yelled ‘goy’ at other Jews – an insulting terms suggesting they are like gentiles. Guest author, Joan Ruzsa, and a friend read that article and responded as follows. Please read this piece and comment. Her point is most important and requires all of us to think about how we view others.
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I was also very struck by “The Boy Said I’m a Ganif.” I appreciate what you’re saying about the need to heal rifts within the different segments of the Jewish community, and to create a united front with which to combat anti-Semitism. But as a non-Jew, I had a very strong reaction to what was almost a side-note in the article, the idea that to some members of the Jewish community, the worst insult is to be called a gentile, and that being a gentile (as expressed by the word goy) is equated with being a bad person.
Reading that actually made my stomach hurt.
I guess that’s the root of divisiveness in the world, that simply by being born into a particular group, you will be looked at with suspicion or disdain, or viewed as less of a person by members of other groups. No matter what you do, or how you live your life, or how much you try to be a good person, to some you will never be more than Jew or gentile or black or gay, etc., defined by the negative stereotypes that go with these labels.
So I agree with you that the only fight worth fighting is the one against hatred in all of its forms, one that asks us to look at each other as human beings who are all equally entitled to love and respect and compassion, and one that encourages us to make decisions and judgments about people based on who they are as individuals rather than lumping them into categories.
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Oh, forgot something important. I DO NOT think that the best solution is to get us out of groups into one big happy “We’re all just humans” group. I think that one of the beauties of the world and specifically of the Jewish world is that there are so many different types. We all connect to different ways of being. AND we often disagree on certain things. This is all fine and good. The point is that within that we should be able to respect each other.