Chicago man charged with hate crime for attack of two Jewish DePaul students

The arrest also comes two weeks after the students, who were attacked in November, filed a lawsuit against DePaul, saying that the university failed to protect Jewish students on campus.

By Grace Gilson, JTA

One of the men who beat two Jewish students at DePaul University in Chicago, after one showed support for Israel last November, has been charged with a hate crime.

Adam Erkan, 20, has been charged with two counts of aggravated battery and hate crime, the Cook County State Attorney’s Office announced this week.

The arrest comes as DePaul’s president has been summoned to testify in the US Congress about antisemitism on his campus.

Robert Manuel is scheduled to appear May 7 before a House committee that set the tenor for federal scrutiny of antisemitism on college campuses in the aftermath of Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel.

The arrest also comes two weeks after the students who were attacked in November, Max Long and Michael Kaminsky, filed a lawsuit against DePaul, saying that the Jesuit university failed to protect Jewish students on campus.

DePaul denounced the attack when it was reported, saying the school was “outraged” and was working with Chicago police to find the perpetrators and determine whether the individuals “targeted our students because of their Jewish identity.”

On Thursday, the school said Erkan was not affiliated with DePaul and expressed gratitude to law enforcement.

“Acts of hate and violence have no place at DePaul,” the school said in a statement. “We condemn antisemitism in all its forms and stand in solidarity with those affected by this reprehensible act.”

Long is an IDF reservist who was in Israel when Hamas attacked. He operates a nonprofit that aims to help lone soldiers, those who move to Israel to enlist in the IDF. Since Oct. 7, amid growing criticism of the IDF and backlash against its soldiers abroad, he has worked to bring reservists to college campuses to share their stories.

On his own campus, he made a habit of draping himself in an Israeli flag and holding a sign that said, “Come talk about Israel with an IDF soldier.”

He was engaged in that work outside DePaul’s student center in November when two masked individuals shouted antisemitic remarks and proceeded to punch him.

Kaminsky then stepped in to help Long.

The students declined medical treatment at the scene, DePaul said, but Kaminsky discovered a fractured wrist that required surgery while Long said he had suffered concussion with long-lasting effects.

Following the attack, several Jewish organizations protested on DePaul’s campus to demand action against antisemitism.

Last month, the school barred a Chicago pro-Palestinian activist group, Behind Enemy Lines, from its campus.

The nonprofit Lawfare Project, which represents Jews seeking civil rights redress, took up the Jewish students’ case.

Kaminsky and Long’s lawsuit against DePaul alleges that the school failed to protect the students despite a pattern of prior threats and harassment against Long.

The lawsuit alleges that, since the attack, students have posted fliers describing Long as “wanted” and accusing him of being a “IDF butcher.”

He told local news that he was so fearful of a physical attack that he dropped a course that required him to be on campus.

Now that one of the perpetrators has been arrested, Kaminsky — a criminal justice major who recently received the “Student Activist of the Year” award from the Combat Antisemitism Movement — said he felt some relief.

“I think there is a little sigh of relief knowing that one of the two violent perpetrators who went out of their way to attack two Jewish students is now off the streets for the time being,” Kaminsky told the ABC News TV network following Erkan’s arrest.