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In a surprising twist of fate, Rama Duwaji, the spouse of New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani, who has been noted for her controversial views on Israel, found herself in an unexpected encounter with Miss Israel at a local café.
The brief meeting took place on Sunday when Duwaji, 28, crossed paths with 27-year-old beauty queen Melanie Shiraz. According to Shiraz, the interaction was short-lived yet charged with tension.
Shiraz took to Instagram to recount the incident, posting a selfie of the two alongside a video where she elaborated on the chance encounter.
“Guess who I ran into at a café in New York—Rama Duwaji, the wife of Zohran Mamdani,” Shiraz said in her post.
“This is the same Rama Duwaji who previously shared highly controversial, anti-Semitic, and anti-Israel sentiments, for which she later issued an apology,” she added.
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.Â
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 IsraeliÂ
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.Â
The image showed a bulldozer used by the group to break through into Israel on that day in which nearly 1,200 people died.Â
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.’Â
‘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.Â
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. Â