In an unexpected turn of events, the wife of New York City Council Member Zohran Mamdani, known for her controversial views on Israel, crossed paths with Miss Israel at a local café.
The encounter between 28-year-old Rama Duwaji and Israeli beauty queen Melanie Shiraz, 27, unfolded on Sunday in New York City. Shiraz later described the brief interaction as somewhat tense.
Shiraz took to Instagram to share a selfie of the two women along with a video recounting the surprising meeting.
“So, guess who ended up sitting next to me at a café in New York?” Shiraz said in her post. “None other than Rama Duwaji, Zohran Mamdani’s wife.”
She continued, “This is the same Rama Duwaji who has previously posted inflammatory anti-Semitic and anti-Israel remarks, for which she later issued an apology.”
Shiraz noted that while Duwaji initially agreed to take a selfie with her, her demeanor shifted upon learning that Shiraz was Israeli.
Shiraz continued: ‘Despite the setting being calm the moment she found out I was Israeli she refused to have a conversation with me.’
A story emerged in the Jewish Insider highlighting Duwaji’s posts and her activity on the platform in March of this year.
Rama Duwaji, 28, and beauty queen Melanie Shiraz, 27, had a brief encounter on Sunday in the city
According to Shiraz, Duwaji was happy to pose for a selfie with her but her behavior changed when she found out that she was Israeli
According to the outlet she liked an image which celebrated the attack by Hamas on Israel in October of 2023.
The post, made by leftist group The Slow Factory, included images of groups of people after having taken over an IDF vehicle, with ‘Free Palestine’ scrawled over it.
Another image said: ‘Breaking the walls of apartheid and military occupation’, followed by the date.
The image showed a bulldozer used by the group to break through into Israel on that day in which nearly 1,200 people died.
When quizzed over the posts, Mamdani said: ‘My wife is the love of my life, and she is also a private person who has held no formal position on my campaign or in my City Hall.’
Captioning her post, Shiraz added: ‘Was I surprised by the outcome? Not particularly. It is easy to apologize without meaningfully changing one’s behavior.’
‘It is easy to claim opposition to dehumanization in principle, but far more difficult to embody that in practice.
‘She was polite throughout. But the shift in demeanor was evident, and the lack of willingness to engage even more so.’
Duwaji and Mamdani are seen here last November on election day in the city
According to Shiraz, Duwaji was happy to pose for a selfie with her but her behavior changed when she found out that she was Israeli
She added: ‘I approached the interaction with openness to a genuine, respectful conversation. That openness was not reciprocated.
‘And that, perhaps, is the more telling point: how often this disconnect appears, and how normalized it has become.’
Recently, Duwaji apologized for her previous social media posts in an interview with an art news outlet.
She said: ‘When a tabloid recently published old tweets I wrote as a teenager, I felt a lot of shame being confronted with language I used that is so harmful to others; being 15 doesn’t excuse it.
‘I’ve read and seen a lot of what others have had to say in response, and I understand the hurt I caused and am truly sorry.’
The Daily Mail contacted the mayor’s office for comment.
