When the late folk singer Harry Chapin wrote “What Made America,” one line read, “It’s funny when you get that close / It’s kind of hard to hate.”
Somebody needs to tell that to New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s wife.
In the kind of collision for which New York City is famous, Rama Duwaji, Mamdani’s wife and a supporter of anti-Israel terrorists, ended up briefly — very briefly — sitting next to a Jewish woman at a coffee shop on Sunday, according to the New York Post.
The encounter veered from friendly to frosty once Duwaji learned she was next to Melanie Shiraz, 27, who just happens to be Miss Israel.
I’m not sure who first posted this
Miss Israel, Melanie Shiraz, was sitting in a Williamsburg coffeeshop next to Rama Duwaji, Zohran Mandani’s wife.Once Duwaji found out that Melanie is Israeli, she suddenly refused to engage with her.
Rama Duwaji and Zohran Mamdani are… pic.twitter.com/YjugdVCPX3
— Eye On Antisemitism (@AntisemitismEye) May 5, 2026
Duwaji, who often has much to say on pro-Palestinian issues, is not talking about the brief encounter, but Shiraz is explaining her side of the story.
“So, guess who sat next to me at a cafe in New York?” Shiraz posted on Instagram, according to Newsweek.
“None other than Zohran Mamdani’s wife, Rama Duwaji — the same Rama Duwaji who posted horribly antisemitic, anti-Israel and terror sympathizing things not that long ago and also apologized for it,” she wrote.
“I told her that, as an Israeli, I was disappointed in seeing the kind of rhetoric she was promoting online,” Shiraz continued. “But I told her part of my ideology as an Israeli is to have productive dialogue in which one side is not constantly dehumanized.”
“But the shift in demeanor was evident, and the lack of willingness to engage even more so,” 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.”
Shiraz took a selfie video that included Duwaji, who began with a smile and then squirmed as if trying to get out of sight.
“She sat right next to me. What are the odds?” Shiraz told the New York Post.
Shiraz said Duwaji’s “tone changed” once she knew she was sitting next to one of Israel’s strongest advocates, and she “couldn’t allow herself to engage with me.”
“I had told her I’m Miss Israel, and then she didn’t want to engage with me anymore. Shocker,’’ Shiraz said. “She was polite but clearly changed her tone.”
Right before she took the footage, Shiraz said that she “asked her if we could take a photo and introduced myself.”
“As soon as I did, she said, ‘Sorry’ and asked if it was a video and said she didn’t want to anymore,’’ Shiraz added.
Shiraz admitted she could not pass up the opportunity to tell Duwaji what she thought of her social media rants.
“I told her what I think about the stuff she has said online, and that I believe that it’s important to engage in dialogue in which you don’t dehumanize the other side. And she politely brushed me off and then refused to engage anymore,” she said.
Shiraz noted that while Duwaji had no trouble sharing her advocacy of Hamas online, it was a different story face-to-face.
“She has publicly addressed comments she made that were sympathetic to October 7 and dehumanizing of Israelis, yet she couldn’t allow herself to engage with me,’’ Shiraz said.
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