The beauty queen said Mamdani’s wife was willing to be photographed at the cafe but refused to have contact with her after learning she was Israeli.
Miss Israel 2025 Melanie Shiraz posted a video of an encounter with Rama Duwaji, the wife of New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani, at a Brooklyn cafe and claimed that Duwaji refused to engage with her on the Palestinian issue. “So, guess who’s sitting next to me in a coffee shop in New York?” Shiraz, 27, praised the 28-year-old New York City first lady in an Instagram video. “None other than Zoran Mamdani’s wife, Rama Duwaji – the same Rama Duwaji who, not so long ago, had posted horrific anti-Semitic, anti-Israel and terrorist comments, sympathized with and apologized for them.”Shiraz said Duwaj was willing to take photos with her until she learned her nationality.“It wasn’t until I told her that, as an Israeli, I was disappointed in what she was promoting online,” Shiraz said. “But I told her that part of my ideology as an Israeli is to have a productive dialogue where one side is not constantly dehumanized.”“But the change in attitude is evident, and the lack of willingness to participate even more so,” Shiraz wrote on Tuesday. “I interacted with an open mind and had genuine, respectful conversations. That openness was not reciprocated. Perhaps, that’s more telling: how often this disconnect occurs and how normalized it has become.”Rama Duwaji has come under fire for expressing hatred of Israel on social media, but Mamdani has protected her and said she is a private person who has not previously held a position in government. Rama Duwaji has not issued a statement on the beauty queen’s claims. The video also doesn’t show any conversation between them.Duvaji apologized last month for social media posts she reportedly made when she was a teenager, saying she was “truly sorry” for sharing information using language that was “so harmful to others” but gave no further details. One post insisted that Tel Aviv “should not exist,” while another praised Palestinian activist Shadia Abu Ghazala — a member of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, a U.S.-designated terrorist group.“When a tabloid recently published an old tweet I wrote when I was a teenager, I was deeply ashamed to be faced with the language I had used that was so harmful to others; being 15 is no excuse,” Duvaj said last month. “I’ve read and seen a lot of other people’s responses and I understand the hurt I caused and am truly sorry.”
