It was while studying at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem that Turku Avci’s world turned upside down exactly three years ago, following the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas-led attack on southern Israel.
The 28-year-old Turkish Muslim undergraduate, who had been living an international student’s dream life in Jerusalem for two years after growing up in a secular, left-wing family in a Mediterranean resort town along the Turkish Riviera, was shocked to see social media reports the day after the worst attack on the Jewish people since the Holocaust depicting Israel as the aggressor.
“I thought this would be the first war that everybody would support Israel,” she told JNS in an interview this week in Tel Aviv. “I felt psychologically tortured. It made me realize the meaning of being an Israeli.”
She recounted what an Israeli friend told her at the time: “We are Jewish. This is what happens. We get used to it.”
“This shook me,” Avci said. “After that, I decided I would do something.”
Social media warrior
Armed with just her cellphone, the political science and communications student started from scratch, making social media videos publicly defending Israel and criticizing Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, who had become one of the most vociferous critics of the Jewish state.
After reaching 30,000 followers on X in Turkey, Avci had to shut down her social media account after her family back home was threatened and she faced legal prosecution.
“I knew there would be backlash, but I never expected this,” she said.
Turkish authorities issued a warrant for her arrest. They charged her with “serial aggravated assault” and insulting Erdoğan over her social media posts and media appearances criticizing Turkish media coverage of the attack and the president’s inflammatory language against Israel.
A Turkish lawyer she hired dropped her case and disassociated himself from her after she was accused of being a Mossad agent.
“I understood that there was no way I could defend myself in Turkey,” she recounted. “I never thought that it could be that level of hatred.”
Her pictures and ID number were posted on social media, as were those of her parents.
“These were the types of things I thought you would see in Pakistan or Iran, but not in Turkey,” she said.
Left in limbo
As the war raged, her Turkish student scholarship was canceled, and she had to leave the dorms, leaving her in limbo in Israel because she was on a student visa and not legally permitted to work in the country.
Her picturesque dream of studying in Jerusalem—and the perspective-changing experience of studying as a Muslim alongside Jews and Christians (“this is what peace looks like”) at the university co-founded by Albert Einstein—seemed for a moment to be falling apart.
It was a dream she had first conceived back in Turkey after encountering Israelis in local bars and becoming increasingly put off by the Islamization of her country.
As word of her case spread, a coterie of organizations and individuals embraced her cause and offered assistance in resolving her visa issues.
“I was not expecting that much love, but the whole nation embraced me, from left and right, from secular to religious,” she said.
“The hate campaign I experienced in Turkey turned into a love campaign in Israel.”
After receiving a donation of nearly $7,000, she rented a flat in Tel Aviv this summer and awaited news about her visa.
‘I would do it again 100 percent’
Then came the news last week that Israel had granted her asylum and issued her a residency visa and national ID card, enabling her to work in the country.
“It would not have happened without the spirit of the people here,” she said.
Reflecting on her unexpected journey, she said she would make the same decisions all over again.
“In my feelings of hopelessness and in my darkest moments, I would ask myself if I would go back and do it again, and I knew that I would do it 100 percent,” she said. “Maybe it’s something inside me.”