UMass Amherst students head across campus in 2014. Photo by Jonathan Wiggs/The Boston Globe via Getty Images

By Hannah Feuer May 9, 2025

A federal judge ordered the release of a former student at the University of Massachusetts Amherst from prison Friday, arguing the detention appeared to have “been almost exclusively triggered” by the militant Zionist group Betar.

Efe Ercelik, who came to the U.S. on a student visa from Turkey, was originally arrested in November 2023 and charged with assaulting a Jewish student at a rally. At the time, Ercelik was released on $250 bail and pleaded guilty to misdemeanors with no required jail time.

About a year and a half later, on April 13, Betar USA posted to X: “We identify Efe Ercelik as one here on a visa and we have submitted his name for deportation. There’s so many of these bastards nationwide he’s an egregious one in Massachusetts, a rotten state.”

Forwarding the News

Thoughtful, balanced reporting from the Forward and around the web, bringing you updated news and analysis each day.

Terms(Required)

I agree to the Forward's Terms of Service and Privacy Policy

Email(Required)

The next day, Ercelik’s visa was revoked. He was taken into custody on Wednesday.

Ercelik’s 2023 arrest occurred when UMass Amherst Hillel hosted a rally featuring Shabbat tables set up with an empty seat for each of the hostages being held by Hamas after the Oct. 7 attack. According to the Anti-Defamation League, which filed a civil rights complaint about the incident, Ercelik approached the group, gave the attending students the middle finger, punched and kicked a Jewish student, and stole an Israeli flag before stabbing it with a knife and throwing it into the trash can.

“If you can’t eat pork, why are you walking around like a bunch of fat f—ing pigs?” Ercelik reportedly told the Jewish student he assaulted, according to the ADL complaint filed with the Education Department last year.

Judge Angel Kelley wrote in her decision that while Ercelik’s physical altercation with another protester was not protected, speech such as “engaging in a counter protest, waving of a Palestinian flag, the showing of his middle fingers, and his political, albeit sometimes crude, speech, all in the name of advocating for the Palestinian people” fell under the First Amendment.

Kelley also noted that Ercelik had purchased a plane ticket to return to Turkey. In her decision, she argued that the government was contradicting itself in detaining Ercelik, since Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem had called self-deportation the “safest option for our law enforcement” and a “70% savings for US taxpayers.”

“It rises to the level of near absurdity,” Kelley wrote.

The Forward is free to read, but it isn’t free to produce

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward.

Now more than ever, American Jews need independent news they can trust, with reporting driven by truth, not ideology. We serve you, not any ideological agenda.

At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse.

Readers like you make it all possible. Support our work by becoming a Forward Member and connect with our journalism and your community.

This is a great time to support independent Jewish journalism you rely on. Make a gift today!

—  Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

Support our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.

$90 $180

$360

Other amount