New York: Threatening messages, and an arrest, bring antisemitism close to home for a New York rabbi

By Grace Gilson • March 26, 2026

Threatening messages, and an arrest, bring antisemitism close to home for a New York rabbi. 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 attack on a synagogue in Detroit 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.”