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Friday night, for the second week in a row, there was an attack on an Orthodox Jew in Crown Heights. He was accused of being a "fake Jew" who was behind the assailant's eviction.

It's not surprising. As a member of that community who has ventured to places around New York that we don't often occupy, I am often forced to answer for my people with biased allegations. I'm a guest in their environment, a minority visitor, and people seem to believe they have the license to approach me with abhorrent claims. To them, I can always return to Williamsburg or wherever they think I come from.

Once, I was standing in a West Village bar and a friend's husband cornered me, handing me a beer he bought me.

"Let me ask you this. A year ago, a Hasidic man in a van side-swiped me and drove off. What do you think about that?"

I nodded and mumbled assurances, asked to defend a stranger who looks like me. My accuser was a non-Jew, and this was his turf. I was silenced, disempowered; I feared arguing with him.

To me, the most obvious visual parts of my identity are of least import; to him, they seemed to be all that mattered.

These were ostensibly liberal New Yorkers who were — at least in theory — sensitive to vulnerable populations, citizens who have it far worse than me. They see my straggly beard and messy white shirt as an invitation to approach with complaints about my people, as I'm viewed as someone without agency, free will, or any sense of individualism.

In a Bushwick bar, as I waited to order, a man leaned over and asked "Are you Hasidic? Can you develop my film?" It was a reference to B&H Photo and Video, the superstore run by Orthodox Jews.

After attending a comedy show, I approached a performer to compliment him on the job well done. Three minutes into the conversation, the inevitable happened. He, a non-Jew, complained to me about a run-in he had with a Chabad emissary, a young man who wanted Jews of all stripes to do good deeds.

The teenager stopped him on the street committed a capital sin — asking him if he was Jewish. With great relish, the comedian recounted how upset he was at the accusation and recounted how he grabbed the teen's black hat off his head, swore, and flung it in the street into oncoming traffic "like a Frisbee." I smiled and shared in his victory, because I had no other response.

Again, I was detained by someone's prejudice. He laughed after telling the story, the biggest joke of the evening. I joined him with laughter as a method of self-preservation. But I could not have been more distant from another human being than I was in that moment.

This was a well-respected New York comedian. We have over 50 mutual friends on Facebook. He knew better.

Another time, I attended an event at a bookstore in Carroll Gardens for the release of a publisher's first guide book to Brooklyn. There was a discussion followed by a Q&A. The panel featured the editor-in-chief of the publishing house, a bestselling author and a Times columnist.

I was in nervous fanboy mode. These were some of my favorite writers.

When the floor opened for question so that we could learn about the best dating places or Brooklyn's biggest secrets, an older man raised his hand. He wore a flannel shirt and khakis with a knapsack on his back. He didn't ask any questions so much as offer comments.

"There are parts of Brooklyn that no one has ever been to. No one has ever heard of. That's because these Orthodox Jews buy up houses and build them up and raise their families in them and don't tell anyone about these neighborhoods. They keep 'em secret from everyone else and keep it all to themselves."

The three panelists, usually articulate, fell silent. Their voices have been heard by millions on NPR. And yet, nothing. Some of them even murmured agreement. The man railed on. No one said, "now now" or "come on" or "ah, it's not so simple."

And as I looked around the audience, no one raised their eyebrows or folded their arms in protest.

At another bar, recently, I had a similar run in with a tale of a hit-and-run. A middle-aged couple asked me to defend a Hasidic driver's rudeness after a fender bender on a late Friday afternoon close to sundown. I apologized and downed half a Guinness in disgust, dropping a huge tip for my beer to counter the stereotype that we're bad tippers.