A Sydney man is the first person to be charged under an anti-Semitism taskforce after he allegedly sent death threats to a Jewish community.
The 44-year-old has been charged with one count of using a carriage service to make a threat to kill and using a carriage service to menace, harass or cause offence.
NSW Police will allege the man, from Blacktown in Sydney’s west, posted death threats on a Jewish association’s social media page.
He was granted bail and is scheduled to appear in Downing Centre Local Court on February 26. If found guilty he could face a maximum of 10 years behind bars.
Australian Federal Police Counter Terrorism and Special Investigations Command Assistant Commissioner Stephen Nutt said anti-Semites ‘should be on notice’.
‘It is abhorrent that individuals are being targeted and threatened because of their race or religion. If you engage in anti-Semitic conduct, you will be investigated and prosecuted to the full extent of the law,’ he said.
The anti-Semitism task force, Special Operation Avalite, was formed following the firebombing of Melbourne’s Adass Israel Synagogue in December.
It followed earlier arson attacks on cars in the Sydney suburb of Woollahra and the electorate office of Jewish Labor MP Josh Burns.
Pictured is one of the cars torched in Dover Heights, in Sydney’s east, on Friday morning

Growing threats against the Jewish community in Australia has sparked the creation of an anti-Semitism taskforce (pictured, police inspect a torched car on December 11)
Mr Nutt said the public could expect more arrests to be made with a number of individuals still under investigation.
The groundbreaking arrest comes as cars in the affluent Sydney suburb of Dover Heights were spray painted with anti-Semitic slogans and two were set alight in the early hours of Friday.
Jewish Australians representative Jillian Segal has called on Prime Minister Anthony Albanese to host a national cabinet meeting to respond to anti-Semitic attacks.
Ms Segal said the incidents weren’t just about social media threats, graffiti and arson damage but were designed to send a message of fear into the community.
‘If we don’t stop it, we are really undermining democracy, and I think that they haven’t yet appreciated that they’re considering it case by case,’ she said.
Foreign Minister Penny Wong did not say whether a national meeting of governments would be coordinated, but agreed that Australia must respond to the issue.
‘I think Jillian Segal is absolutely right to make the point that this is not just an issue for the Jewish community, this is an attack on all of us and this is an attack on who we are,’ Senator Wong told ABC Radio National.
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