Zohran Mamdani Asked About Wife Apparently Liking Social Media Posts That Celebrate Oct. 7 Attack

Democratic New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani on Friday sidestepped questions about his wife’s apparent support for Instagram posts celebrating Hamas’ deadly assault on Israel on October 7, 2023.

Rama Duwaji, a Syrian-American artist who married Mamdani in early 2025, liked several Instagram posts on the day of the attack and the day after that presented the violence as justified resistance, according to Jewish Insider, which first reported the story. A post from an account called The Slow Factory showed images of a bulldozer breaching the Israel-Gaza barrier and attackers atop a seized Israeli military vehicle.

Duwaji also viewed People’s Forum content promoting a pro-Palestinian rally in Times Square on October 8, 2023. Both articles contained the phrase “from the river to the sea,” Jewish Insider reported. Mamdani himself publicly condemned that same rally in Times Square at the time for downplaying the massacre. (RELATED: Mamdani Campaign Architect’s New Project Reveals Stunning Levels of Illusion)

CBS News independently verified that Duwaji liked at least one post from October 7 showing footage of the attack and another from the next day showing anti-Israel protests.

When pressed at an unrelated event in the Bronx, Mamdani shielded his wife from scrutiny. “My wife is the love of my life, and she is also a private person who has not held any official position in my campaign or at City Hall,” he told reporters, according to the New York Post (NYP).

This defense of “private person” rang hollow. NYP noted that Duwaji appeared on the digital cover of New York Magazine in late December and has sat on several New York Times profiles. Duwaji herself acknowledged the couple’s shared public life in her New York Magazine interview. “I realized it wasn’t just his thing but our thing,” she told the outlet.

The Free Press later reported that the problem ran deeper than initial findings suggested, revealing more than 70 anti-Israel posts that Duwaji had liked, including one that dismissed the documented October 7 sexual violence as a fabricated hoax.

Mamdani is the second New York politician forced to answer for his spouse’s online activities in a single week. New York Democratic Rep. Dan Goldman also distanced himself from positions his wife enjoyed after Oct. 7, NBC New York reported.