Sometimes in our little sporadic sectarian skirmishes (the Owings Mills JCC/Shabbat issue, family holiday meals, etc.), those of us who are not as observant as our traditional friends, relatives and neighbors often forget about what they go through in their daily lives in America.

This slapped me upside my head the other day.

My last blog entry, as you may or may not recall, dealt with my almost 7-year-old son and I hearing a bizarre anti-Semitic comment made at a recent Fort McHenry Flag Day gathering. The reason for the comment was that a family walking behind us had the audacity to be Orthodox and wear traditional attire. (Me, I thought people were allowed to dress in the manner in which they choose in America, as long as they weren’t buck naked.)

Anyway, I happened to see a neighbor a day or two later, and I told him about how shocked and upset I was about this dork yelling out something against Jews because he happened to see folks in yarmulkes and long dresses. But my neighbor, who is Orthodox, just stared at me incredulously.

“Alan,” he said, “don’t you know I deal with this all the time. All the time. Where’ve you been? It’s a way of life for us.”

He proceeded to tell me about how when walking to services on Shabbat, he and his family are routinely harassed and ridiculed by motorists and other passersby. One non-Jewish neighbor’s kids occasionally yell, “You’re going to hell!!” One driver has a penchant (and reputation) for stopping in the middle of Smith Avenue on Shabbat and leaning on his horn for a long time when he sees an Orthodox person or family crossing the street or walking along the sidewalks.

And this is in Pikesville, mind you, not Ames, Iowa!!

My neighbor told me he’s had pennies thrown at him on occasions. (If anyone threw pennies at me, I must admit, I think I would get myself killed in some kind of melee.)

Furthermore, my neighbor told me about when he was hospitalized as a teenager after being jumped by a group of anti-Semitic idiots while attending a yeshiva in the Midwest. He also told me about how he was once at Lexington Market and a kind, elderly woman told him to get out immediately, because she heard some thugs saying they were going to mess with him because they could tell he’s Jewish.

After telling me all of this, my neighbor smiled and laughed gently. He could see the look of horror and indignation on my face. “You’re naïve,” he said to me, “you just don’t know what it’s like out there. We’re used to it. Your guy at Fort McHenry, he was just a kook. I don’t worry as much about the kooks as the other kinds. They’re the ones who scare me.”

Maybe I am naïve. I’ve never doubted that dressing as a traditional Jew (or any other kind of outwardly religious person) draws its share of stares, moronic comments and occasional juvenile behavior in our society.

But to this extent—where one is subjected to fairly constant belittlement in a largely Jewish area, to the point of hearing about an anti-Semitic comment and not even being alarmed or spooked by it – was a real wake-up call for me.

A couple of years ago, when chatting with a close Jewish friend about anti-Semitism, he simply looked down at one point, took off his glasses, shook his head woefully and said, “They just hate us so much. They hate us so much.”

I’m not sure I’m willing to go to that point of capitulation. I still believe that the majority of people in this country believe in the freedom of religious expression and practice, and don’t really care if I wear a kippah, turban or a nun’s habit.

But hearing my Orthodox neighbor’s stories about what he goes through reminded me that – OK, cue up the maudlin violin music—Jews of all stripes and flavors still need to stick together. Maybe we’re not really “One,” as our Jewish organizations like to tell us during solicitation drives. But if we think we’re out of the woods and completely accepted by secular American society, we need to think again.

Last Sunday night, I took my son to a great fireworks show at Fort McHenry, the birthplace of “The Star-Spangled Banner,” in honor of Flag Day. He got his first real taste there of good old-fashioned American patriotism, with a brass marching band belting out prideful tunes and dazzling red, white and blue colors lighting up the downtown skies (and reflected in the murky harbor waters).

But he also got something else that I hadn’t bargained for – his first real taste of good old-fashioned American bigotry.

Here’s what happened. After the program ended, we and thousands of others headed back to our parked cars, many of which were located outside of the fort. It was a beautiful night, and everyone was in a great mood after the wonderful presentation. The police officers kept us in line, asking folks to make sure to stay on the sidewalks, to keep the main street clear for emergency vehicles and motorists who were lucky (and early) enough to park inside the fort itself.

But as we all made our way out, I saw a strange-looking man on the street near the sidewalk who appeared to be selling fluorescent glow sticks. I barely paid any attention to him, he was just one of those guys you see at events selling stuff, when I heard him yell out (while looking down at his merchandise), “The Jews are accursed by God! The Jews are accursed by God!” Then, he said nothing.

Huh? The Jews are accursed by God? Where’d that come from? Was he some kind of Old Testament prophet with a dire warning? (He did have a straggly beard and glazed-over eyes.) Did he have some kind of inside information? What do Jews have to do with glow sticks?

At first, I didn’t think I heard him right, so I just kept on walking. But his odd words continued to ring in my ears. “The Jews are accursed by God!” I thought to myself, “Why did he just say that out of the blue?” So I looked around and noticed an Orthodox family walking directly behind us, dressed in kippot and long dresses. When their young children asked about the man’s odd words, the mother looked embarrassed and tried to laugh. “He didn’t say anything,” she told them, “don’t pay attention. Everything is fine. Don’t worry about it.”

I didn’t think my 7-year-old son caught it, but when we got into my car, (sure enough!) he asked, “Dad, why did that man say that Jews are cursed by God? What did he mean by that? I don’t get it.”

I thought for a moment before answering. “Well, Josh,” I told him, deciding to go for the honesty route, “there are a lot of weird, sick, strange people in this world, and I guess that man is just one of them. He doesn’t like that Jewish people are different from him, and that’s not what tonight was all about.” Then, of course, I tried to change the subject. But from my rear-view mirror, I could see the little wheels spinning in my son’s head.

Driving home, I thought about that great scene in the film “Witness” when Harrison Ford, playing a tough Philly cop hiding out in an Amish community and posing as a “plain person,” beats the living hell out of a couple of secular ne’er-do-wells who mess with him and Kelly McGillis’s family. I daydreamed about going over to that anti-Semitic street vendor creep and showing him a few new things he could do with those glow sticks.

But then I thought better. After all, strangling a nut-job in front of one’s kid and other youngsters might not be the best or most mature way to handle an unfortunate situation.

But in the same week that a white supremacist walks into the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum and kills a security guard, and a Republican activist makes a “joke” about the First Lady being related to a gorilla, you can’t blame a man for daydreaming about kicking a bigot’s butt, now can you?

Maybe sometimes we Jews are a bit too civilized for our own good. Maybe at least one of us should’ve gone over and looked Mr. Glow Stick in the eye and said, “Do you have something to say, pal? Who’s really cursed here?”

Ah, why do I always think of these things too late?

This afternoon, James W. von Brunn, a noted white supremacist and Holocaust denier from Annapolis, stepped into the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C., wearing a Confederate hat, and opened fire indiscriminately with a long rifle, killing a security guard named Stephen Tyrone Johns before being shot in the head by two other guards.

Von Brunn, 88, reportedly a World War II veteran, did this while the museum – sacred ground to many, many Americans – was filled with innocent schoolchildren.

The assault comes only a few days after President Obama’s historic and touching visit to the Buchenwald concentration camp.

Von Brunn’s action doesn’t make any sense, of course. It defies logic. But for years, he has been outspoken about his hatred for Jews and African-Americans, and even told one of his ex-wives that he planned to go out in a fiery blaze of glory.

As of this writing, he is barely holding onto life and is in critical condition at George Washington Hospital.

Perhaps his action will inspire his fellow adherents of hatred. But it should also encourage those of us who strongly believe in equality, justice and non-violence to recommit ourselves to fighting the hatred in our midst.

More than anything else, it should remind us not to be lax about the bigotry out there. We all have a tendency to look at discrimination and hatred as a thing of the past, something that fills the history books but has no place in our lives and society anymore. We’ve moved on, we figure. People’s ethnic heritage, race and religion don’t matter in America anymore. We’ve achieved Dr. King’s dream. After all, we now have a black president. People don’t openly use ethnic slurs anymore. (Or they usually don’t.) Stereotypes are viewed as boorish and passé, like polyester suits and perms.

This horrible happening in the nation’s capital today should remind us that this is not the case, and that hatred is alive and well here. We always have to be ready to meet it head-on.

Let’s hope that those kids in the museum today, rather than being scarred by the experience, will always remember the sounds of those gunshots ringing out as a call to never forget the hatred that unfortunately seems to be a component of the human condition.

The other day, I was driving through the Greengate neighborhood when I passed by the Moses Montefiore Anshe Emunah Hebrew Congregation. For those of us who grew up in this area, that shul was, and always will be, in our minds, Liberty Jewish Center.

Driving by, I couldn’t help but notice the prominent stone monument in front of the synagogue’s parking lot, designating the area the “Rabbi Jacob A. Max Torah Campus.” I wasn’t looking for it, but there it was, a proud and bold homage to the congregation’s rabbi emeritus.

It all would seem quite innocuous if one didn’t know all of the facts.

A couple of months ago, Rabbi Max, as most of you undoubtedly already know, was convicted, at age 85, of sexual molestation. Since news reports first surfaced of the conviction, a sizable number of women have called the Baltimore Jewish Times office, to report their less-than-honorable interactions and memories over the years with Rabbi Max.

Now I understand that the folks at Liberty Jewish Center feel a sense of allegiance and loyalty (and rachmones) to Rabbi Max. After all, he was their spiritual leader and life force for more than five decades. His smiles, his words of comfort and guidance, served congregants at their highest peaks and lowest valleys, and that can never be forgotten. He was there for them.

But at the same time, we must never forget the pain, humiliation and self-loathing of those who have suffered at the hands of people who have this compulsion or disease or disorder, or whatever you want to call it, that seems to be rampant in our society (and yes, even in the Jewish world). Their needs and comfort levels must be remembered, too.

So I say this as someone whose wedding was officiated by Rabbi Max, and whose family was always touched by this complicated man at virtually all of our simchas and sorrows. I say this as someone who spoke at Rabbi Max’s retirement gala. To borrow very loosely from the late President Reagan regarding his line on the Berlin Wall (“Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!”), I say, “LJC, remove that stone! Please.”

I’m sure this is an exceedingly difficult, painful, awkward and confusing time for the congregation. That’s understood. But the healing must begin, at once, and taking away that in-your-face reminder is a first step. I hope that the synagogue’s elders will not tarry on this matter. There is a time to “committee” things endlessly, and a time to quietly and quickly take care of a situation.

Now is a time for the latter.