Mayor Zohran Mamdani's Wife Liked Posts Praising Hamas Oct. 7 Attacks

A Jewish Insider report, republished in a JTA piece, revealed that Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s wife, Rama Duwaji, liked social media posts that described the Oct. 7, 2023 Hamas attacks on Israel as “resistance.”

“A version of this piece first ran as part of the New York Jewish Week’s daily newsletter, rounding up the latest on politics, culture, food and what’s new with Jews in the city”

JTA

The reporting specifies that those likes were linked directly to posts on the anniversary of the attacks and were identified publicly by media outlets covering the mayor’s family.

JTA

The disclosure has drawn attention because it connects a City Hall figure’s immediate family to online material framing October 7 in explicitly political terms.

The JTA account details at least one specific post Duwaji liked: an Oct. 7 image showing a bulldozer breaching the fence between Israel and Gaza with the caption, “Breaking the walls of apartheid and military occupation,” and accompanying text reading, “Systemic change for collective liberation.”

Another caption shared by nonprofit The Slow Factory framed Gaza’s conditions as impoverished and warned that residents, “half of them children,” would be punished “if and when the occupation forces retaliate against this resistance.”

JTA

These verbatim captions are provided in the reporting to show the language Duwaji engaged with.

The reporting places the likes alongside Duwaji’s ongoing pro-Palestinian activism: JTA notes she is a Syrian-American artist who has made pro-Palestinian advocacy a focal point of her ceramics, animation and illustrations.

“A version of this piece first ran as part of the New York Jewish Week’s daily newsletter, rounding up the latest on politics, culture, food and what’s new with Jews in the city”

JTA

It also reports that Duwaji liked posts from pro-Palestinian rallies in Times Square on Oct. 8, which were led by the Democratic Socialists of America and allied groups.

The timing and nature of the liked content were highlighted as part of a broader pattern of public advocacy captured in the article.

The political response and distancing are also included in the JTA piece: the Times Square protests were “widely rebuked by Democrats,” and JTA quotes Mayor Mamdani saying his “support for Palestinian liberation should never be confused for a celebration of the loss of civilian life.”

Separately, a City Hall spokesperson explicitly distanced Mamdani from his wife’s social media activity, stating, “Mayor Mamdani has been clear and consistent: Hamas is a terrorist organization, October 7th was a horrific war crime, and he has condemned that violence unequivocally.”

JTA

The article situates these statements as the official municipal reply to the resurfacing of the likes.