An Israeli Hasidic Jew who took part in a 2023 protest against an Israeli flag displayed outside a New York town hall is now facing deportation from the United States, The New York Times reported Wednesday.
Yehonatan Ovadia, 35, an Israeli citizen and religious teacher, has been held in federal immigration detention since August after U.S. authorities revoked his legal status over the incident. Ovadia, who has lived in the United States since 2022 on a religious worker visa, says he attended the demonstration but did not tear down the flag.
Yehonatan Ovadia, center, at a demonstration against Israel in New York this year
(Photo: Eric Lee)
His lawyers filed a lawsuit in Manhattan federal court seeking his release, arguing that the Trump administration is retaliating against him for protected political and religious speech. They say authorities are conflating his anti-Zionist views with antisemitism.
“He’s against the Israeli government and the existence of the state of Israel for religious reasons, but to claim that he’s an antisemite is the peak of absurdity,” attorney Eric Lee told the Times.
Ovadia was arrested by Immigration and Customs Enforcement after being summoned to immigration court in Manhattan on Aug. 28. He is being held at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn.
The Department of Homeland Security said Ovadia had “overstayed his welcome and refused to depart” after his legal status was revoked. In a statement cited by the Times, the department said the administration had acted within its legal authority and accused Ovadia of conduct including advocating violence, supporting terrorists, harassing Jews and stealing property.
Ovadia is a husband and father of five who lives in Rockland County, north of New York City, home to one of the largest concentrations of ultra-Orthodox Jews in the United States. He belongs to Satmar, a major Hasidic movement that opposes Zionism and the existence of the State of Israel on theological grounds.
According to the Times, Ovadia appears to be part of a smaller group of politically active Satmar Hasidim who have also publicly aligned themselves with the Palestinian cause. He has regularly attended anti-Israel demonstrations, at times carrying a Palestinian flag.
“We demonstrated for Gaza, for the liberation of Gaza, for the rights of the Palestinians and to show to the world that the Jews, real Judaism, want to have peace,” Ovadia told the Times in a phone interview from detention.
The case stems from a protest in Ramapo, New York, following the Oct. 7, 2023 Hamas attack on Israel. Five days after the massacre, town supervisor Michael Specht had a large Israeli flag mounted outside the town hall in solidarity with Israelis.
About a month later, residents opposed to the display of a foreign flag on a municipal building organized a demonstration. Ovadia and other Satmar Jews argued that the Israeli flag represented a state whose existence they believe is forbidden under their interpretation of Jewish law.
Ovadia said he drove several people to the Nov. 13 protest, which drew around 20 Jewish demonstrators. Members of the fringe anti-Zionist Neturei Karta movement were also present.
“We wanted to express our opinion legally, peacefully,” Ovadia said.
Surveillance footage reviewed by the Times showed several men in traditional Hasidic dress tearing the flag down before two men cut it apart with scissors. Ovadia said a friend removed the flag and that he objected to the act and tried to leave immediately.
Police later stopped Ovadia after identifying his van in surveillance footage. He acknowledged driving people to the protest but said he did not know where the flag was.
Ovadia was initially charged with criminal mischief, petit larceny and conspiracy, all as hate crimes. The hate crime charges were later dropped. In February 2024, he pleaded guilty to disorderly conduct, which is classified as a violation rather than a crime under New York law, and paid a $200 fine plus an additional $125.
The immigration consequences emerged later. When Ovadia’s congregation sought an extension of his religious worker visa in September 2025, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services requested police and court records connected to the protest.
The agency issued what the Times described as an unusual split decision in May: It found Ovadia qualified to continue working in the United States as a religious worker but declined to allow him to remain in the country to do so.
In its decision, the agency said it had found no “conviction or commission of a crime involving moral turpitude,” but nevertheless used its discretion to deny his continued stay after weighing what it called “adverse factors.” These included the charges that had been dropped, the disorderly conduct violation and police records indicating that Ovadia declined to identify others involved in the protest.
The immigration decision did not cite Ovadia’s political activism or President Donald Trump’s executive order directing federal authorities to scrutinize noncitizens involved in conduct the administration considers antisemitic.
Ovadia’s attorneys argue, however, that his detention fits into the administration’s broader crackdown on foreign nationals involved in pro-Palestinian or anti-Israel activism.
“He’s very, very devoted, and he is strong-minded,” Rabbi Leibish Iliovits, who helped Ovadia settle in the United States, told the Times. “He would stand up for what he believes is right, and he wouldn’t back down, but he would not harm anyone.”
Ovadia’s lawyers were expected to seek his release at a bond hearing in Manhattan on Wednesday morning.