JTA — Rabbi Matt Cutler was wrapping up a local TV interview last Thursday when a text from State Police came through: The man who had been posting antisemitic threats against him online was about to be arrested.

The notice was timely for Cutler, the leader of the Reform synagogue Congregation Gates of Heaven in Schenectady, New York, who was speaking with a local TV station about heightened anxieties in his community following the terror attack on a synagogue in the Detroit metro area that day.

“This one brought it closer to home, to say that what happened in Michigan could happen here,” Cutler told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency. “And we need to dig deep and be prepared, be vigilant, but not cower, to lean in with pride.”

Cutler had been made aware of the threats against him days earlier, which had been reported to New York State Police without his knowledge.

“This was a community effort, people notified me, I did not contact the State Police, other people did,” Cutler said. “You want to know how we stand up to vigilant antisemitism? When things are a threat, they said something, they called it in.”

The man accused of making the threats, Joshua J. Wood, 45, of Troy, New York, was arrested Thursday evening in Brunswick, New York, by police with the assistance of the New York State Police Counterterrorism Intelligence Unit and the FBI’s Joint Terrorism Task Forces.

He was charged with second-degree aggravated harassment, a hate crime form of the charge, and arraigned in Schaghticoke Town Court before being released on his own recognizance.

The charges stemmed from a string of antisemitic threats allegedly made by Wood on social media targeting........

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