Reports that Rama Duwaji endorsed contested posts about October 7 spark scrutiny of the mayor’s household
Report: NYC First Lady Engaged With Controversial Posts
A report published by The Free Press on March 7, 2026, brought new scrutiny to Rama Duwaji, the wife of Mayor Zohran Mamdani and the First Lady of New York City. The outlet reported that Duwaji had liked more than 70 Instagram posts expressing strong views critical of Israel, including posts that characterized the October 7, 2023 Hamas attacks on Israel in contested ways. Among the posts identified, one referred to reporting by The New York Times on sexual violence committed during the October 7 attacks as a fabrication. The Times’ investigation, which was published in December 2023, documented what it described as a pattern of sexual violence used as a weapon of war. That reporting has been disputed by some critics and defended by others, including by the outlet itself, which has stood by its methodology. The post that Duwaji allegedly liked described the Times’ mass rape reporting as a “hoax.” Other posts liked by Duwaji, according to The Free Press, included content that called for International Criminal Court action against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, referred to President Biden as “Butcher Biden,” and praised students who occupied a Columbia University building in April 2024.
Context: What “Liking” a Post Means — and Does Not Mean
Social media engagement is a complex and often imprecise measure of personal belief. Advocacy journalists and legal scholars have cautioned against treating a “like” on Instagram as the equivalent of a written endorsement or a policy position. People like posts for a range of reasons, including curiosity, accidental taps, and algorithmic surfacing of content. That said, elected officials and their immediate family members occupy positions in which their public social media activity is reasonably subject to scrutiny. Duwaji has not issued a public statement addressing the report. Mayor Mamdani’s office did not comment directly on the specific posts identified, though the mayor has spoken publicly about his own positions on the Gaza conflict, including his stated intention to honor an International Criminal Court warrant for Netanyahu’s arrest if the Israeli prime minister were to visit New York City during his term.
Mamdani’s Own Positions
The mayor has been open about his views on the Gaza situation, making him one of the most explicitly positioned elected officials in the United States on that question. He supported a ceasefire early in the conflict and has spoken at public events where opposition to Israeli military operations has been a theme. His critics have argued that his household’s social media activity reflects those views in a less filtered form. His supporters argue that criticism of Israeli government policy does not constitute antisemitism, and that the conflation of the two is itself a form of political manipulation.
The Broader Debate Over Political Families and Public Life
The scrutiny of Duwaji’s social media activity raises a question that applies across the political spectrum: to what extent are the spouses of elected officials public figures who should expect their private engagement to be treated as politically significant? There is no settled answer to this question in American political culture. First Ladies and their equivalents at the state and local level have historically occupied an unusual space — neither elected nor fully private. Pew Research Center data on social media and public trust offers useful framing for the ways in which public figures’ online activity is perceived and interpreted.
The Free Press’s Role and Perspective
The Free Press, founded by journalist Bari Weiss, has established itself as a publication that is frequently critical of progressive politics and sympathetic to centrist and right-of-center perspectives on Israel. Its choice to investigate and publish Duwaji’s Instagram activity is consistent with its editorial posture. That context does not render the reporting false, but it is relevant to how readers assess the framing of the story. The International Fellowship of Christians and Jews and other organizations have published resources on the distinction between antisemitism and political criticism that may help readers navigate these questions. The story remains an active subject of debate in New York political circles, and its long-term impact on Mamdani’s mayoralty is unclear. What is certain is that it has added a new layer of complexity to a mayoralty that was already operating under an unusual degree of national attention.
