Democratic New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani deflected questions Friday about his wife’s apparent endorsement of Instagram posts that celebrated Hamas’ deadly Oct. 7, 2023, assault on Israel.
Rama Duwaji, a Syrian-American artist who married Mamdani in early 2025, liked multiple Instagram posts on the day of the attack and the following day that framed the violence as justified resistance, according to Jewish Insider, which first reported the story. One post from an account called The Slow Factory showed images of a bulldozer smashing through the Israel-Gaza barrier and attackers atop a seized Israeli military vehicle.
Duwaji also engaged with content from The People’s Forum promoting a pro-Palestinian rally in Times Square on Oct. 8, 2023. Both posts featured the phrase “from the river to the sea,” Jewish Insider reported. Mamdani himself publicly condemned that same Times Square rally at the time for minimizing the massacre. (RELATED: Mamdani Campaign Architect’s New Project Reveals Stunning Levels Of Delusion)
CBS News independently verified that Duwaji liked at least one post from Oct. 7 displaying images of the attack and another from the next day showing anti-Israel demonstrations.
When pressed at an unrelated Bronx event, Mamdani shielded his wife from scrutiny. “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,” he told reporters, according to the New York Post (NYP).
That “private person” defense rang hollow. NYP noted Duwaji appeared on New York Magazine’s digital cover in late December and sat for multiple New York Times profiles. Duwaji herself acknowledged the couple’s shared public life in her New York Magazine interview. “I realized that it was not just his thing but our thing,” she told the outlet.
The Free Press later reported the problem ran deeper than the initial findings suggested, uncovering more than 70 anti-Israel posts Duwaji had liked, including one that dismissed documented Oct. 7 sexual violence as a fabricated hoax.
Mamdani is the second New York politician in a single week forced to answer for a spouse’s online activity. Democratic New York Rep. Dan Goldman similarly distanced himself from posts his wife liked after Oct. 7, NBC New York reported.
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