The first lady of New York City provided art for an essay by a writer who has described Jews as “vampires,” “demons” and “ghouls.”
Rama Duwaji, Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s wife, provided a picture for an essay by anti-Israel activist Susan Abulhawa, who called the Oct. 7, 2023 terrorist attack on Israel “spectacular,” according to a report by the Washington Free Beacon.
The illustration by Duwaji was featured in an Abulhawa essay titled, “A Trail of Soap,” about a woman in Gaza looking for a bathroom, in the “Everything is Political” magazine.
The magazine is an offshoot of the social justice nonprofit organization Slow Factory, which since 2012 has, according to its website, “worked at the intersections of climate and culture to build partnerships and community to advance climate-positive global movements through the lens of human rights, science, technology, and fashion.”
The Daily Signal reached out to Mamdani’s office for comment on this story, but they did not respond by publication.
Abulhawa has a long record of caustic criticism of Israel and Jews.
In an essay for The Electronic Intifada, written five days after the Oct. 7 attack, she called it “a spectacular moment that shocked the world.”
“Per usual, the Western media is falling in step with Zionist propaganda that this was ‘an unprovoked attack’ and that Israel has a right to ‘self-defense,’” she wrote.
The Palestinian-American activist further wrote of the attack that “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.”
In September she posted on X that “we live in a time of Jewish supremacist demons.” Later that month she called Jews “vampires.”
In a December post on X, Abulhawa wrote of Israel, “nothing is ever enough for these rootless, soulless ghouls.”
The Free Beacon reported that a spokeswoman for Mamdani responded to the report.
“As is common for freelance illustrators, the First Lady was commissioned to illustrate an excerpt of Abulhawa’s book by an outside publisher,” the spokeswoman said. “She has never engaged with or met Susan Abulhawa, nor had she seen the tweets in question.”
The story comes shortly after a report from the Jewish Insider came out that Duwaji “liked” a series of posts on Instagram that among other things called a New York Times investigation into sexual violence on Oct. 7 part of a fabricated “mass rape” hoax.
The Free Press additionally reported that this was among “more than 70 Instagram posts” in which New York’s first lady “cosigned extreme positions against Israel.”
Mamdani didn’t deny the posts but said in a statement that his wife is a “private person” with no role in City Hall.
“My wife is the love of my life, and she’s also a private person who has held no formal position on my campaign or in my City Hall,” Mamdani said. “I, however, was elected to represent all 8.5 million people in the city, and I believe that it’s my responsibility, because of that role, to answer any questions about my thoughts and my policies and my decisions.”
