Do Mamdani's Wife's Posts Really Matter?
Not as such, but her past views are part of a broader milieu of radicalism around the mayor.
New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s wife, Rama Duwaji, is back in the news. The New York Post’s Carl Campanile reported Monday that the city’s first lady had created artwork for a campaign run by the New York chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) that encouraged votes for anti-Israel candidates and support of an anti-Israel bill introduced by her now-husband. Campanile’s reporting follows more explosive coverage from the Washington Free Beacon’s Jon Levine on Duwaji’s association with a pro-Hamas author and years-old social media posts in which she appeared to express her own sympathies for anti-Israel terrorists.
This digging into Duwaji’s past views has raised thorny questions about the proper targets of journalism. Asked earlier this month about her behavior, Mamdani asserted that his wife is a “private person who has held no formal position on my campaign or in my City Hall.” Commentator Thomas Chatterton Williams, meanwhile, dismissed Levine’s coverage as a “kind of digital cancel culture.” Duwaji is not a keeper of the public trust; is it fair game to report on her just because her husband is?
The answer is yes and no. It’s not necessarily notable what the mayor’s wife “liked” on Instagram or for whom she worked when she was dating Mamdani. But her actions do provide insights into the broader milieu in which the mayor moved before his election—a milieu which, by all accounts, was suffused with the kind of people who make such value judgements.
Chatterton Williams’s objection probably rings true to some readers, even those inclined to be hostile to Mamdani. Some (although far from all) of the surfaced posts and activities were from when Duwaji was an adolescent. Others still represent views that are certainly within the mainstream far left. Sanctioning West Bank settlement may be an objectionable view on the merits, but otherwise reasonable people hold it.
Moreover, Duwaji is not the elected mayor of New York City. She is arguably a public figure—her illustration work has appeared in major outlets, and she has commanded significant media attention. But she doesn’t wield any formal power, and what influence she does have comes merely through her private relationship with Mamdani.
It is true that first ladies have been the subject of reasonable scrutiny in the past, especially when they use their public position to advance causes about which they care. If Duwaji used her role as first lady of New York City to advocate on matters of foreign policy, it would be perfectly reasonable to bring up her past views.
But what’s notable about the story is not that Duwaji happens to be in a position adjacent to power. It’s what her past activities say about with whom the mayor makes friends. In that context, her views are far from anomalous—and still more cause for concern.
Take, for example, Duwaji’s illustration work for an essay collection compiled by Susan Abulhawa, as reported on by the Free Beacon. As Levine wrote:
Abulhawa, an author and anti-Israel activist, has a long history of supporting terror and demonizing Jews. Just days after Oct. 7, she wrote an op-ed in Electronic Intifada in which she called the massacres “a spectacular moment that shocked the world” and insinuated that Israel allowed the attack to happen.
“Whether or not Israel indeed knew of the plans in advance, those few freedom fighters inspired not only the whole of Palestine, but the oppressed masses worldwide, to imagine what freedom looks like; what resistance is possible; and what life is attainable,” she wrote.
Abulhawa has spent the years since Oct. 7 offering thinly veiled attacks against Israelis, “Zionists,” and “Jewish supremacists” on social media.
Or take Duwaji’s work with the DSA. As my colleague Stu Smith has reported, the group’s New York City and national organizations have responded to Mamdani’s victory—among the most high-profile wins for a DSA member ever—with infighting over whether the mayor is sufficiently radical for their purposes. An increasingly vocal faction in the DSA sees moderation, and politics more generally, as beside the point—namely, pursuing the revolution.
And, as Smith has reported, that faction is gaining ground. DSA’s “security commission,” for example, recently added a self-identified “Maoist” with a history of violent rhetoric; DSA’s leadership declined to remove him when the chance arose. Then, of course, there’s DSA’s increasingly close relationship with the communist regime in Cuba, including members’ participation in a group of prominent leftists who visited the island nation this past weekend.
Duwaji, of course, didn’t go to Cuba herself. But she’s another node in the network that connects Mamdani to often shockingly radical Leftists—like the far-Left south-Asian activist network that may have helped boost his social media metrics by eliciting views among non-American users.
Mamdani, for his part, has tried to signal moderation since taking office. He has even taken some positive policy steps because of this—steps for which we at City Journal have applauded when appropriate.
But the mayor’s alleged moderation is and should be treated with suspicion, and it should be assumed to be tactical unless substantially shown otherwise. Duwaji’s past “likes” on posts sympathetic to Hamas shouldn’t be that interesting to voters. But Mamdani’s connection to a milieu in which such behavior is normal absolutely should be. And they shouldn’t forget about that fact, even as the mayor tries to pivot away from his past.
How dare you attack posters.