The wife of New York City Democratic socialist Mayor Zohran Mamdani is accused of liking several social media posts cheering the violent October 7, 2023 terrorist attack on Israel, and he has come out defending her.
According to the Jewish Insider, Mamdani’s wife, Rama Duwaji, interacted with the posts that celebrated the attack that took the lives of 1,200 Israelis and foreign workers, the outlet reported on Friday.
In the October 7 massacre, thousands were wounded, hundreds were kidnapped, and Hamas also committed sexual violence against victims, according to Breitbart News.
The report said after the initial attack, “eyewitnesses began to come forward and to describe sexual violence, much of it deeply sadistic, against both women and men, both during the October 7 attack and against Israeli hostages held by Hamas in Gaza.”
Duwaji is a Syrian-American artist, and what appears to be her Instagram account features pro-Palestinian artwork.
The Insider detailed one post she reportedly liked from The Slow Factory:
The Instagram post shows stills from participants’ livestreamed footage of the attack: first of a bulldozer that terrorists used to breach the barrier separating Israel from Gaza, the second of attackers riding on a captured IDF vehicle. Printed on the former are the words “Breaking the walls of apartheid and military occupation,” and on the latter “Resisting apartheid since 1948,” and on both the slogan “Systemic change for collective liberation.”
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Duwaji, who met Mamdani on a dating app in 2021 and married him in early 2025, liked this post and others using a personal account in her own name, on which she has posted her often-political illustrations and with which the mayor has interacted in the past. She has used it also to directly criticize Israeli policy.
During a recent press conference, a reporter asked Mamdani to respond to the Insider article.
He defended her by stating, “My wife is the love of my life and she’s also a private person who has held no formal position on my campaign or in my City Hall. I, however, was elected to represent all eight and a half million people in this city and I believe that is my responsibility, because of that role to answer any questions about my thoughts and my policies and my positions.”
While Mamdani was still a candidate in 2025, his wife publicly mourned a Palestinian social media figure killed in Gaza who was known for promoting the Hamas terrorist group’s propaganda, Breitbart News reported.
Duwaji “shared four broken-heart emojis on Instagram in response to reports of the death of Palestinian influencer Saleh al-Jafarawi. The 27-year-old, widely known online as ‘Mr. FAFO,’ gained international attention for his viral pro-Hamas videos during the Israel-Hamas war and his celebratory posts following the October 7, 2023 terror attack that killed roughly 1,200 Israelis. Duwaji posted a second Instagram story, referring to him as ‘Beloved Jafarawi,’” the outlet said.
