Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s family has crossed paths with the anti-Israel activist who called Jews “cockroaches” and “vampires,” despite his attempts to distance himself from her.
Susan Abulhawa, 55, is a member of the Advisory Policy Council of the Gaza Tribunal along with Mamdani’s Columbia University professor father, Mahmood Mamdani.
The group, which features just 29 members, was established in London in 2024 and describes itself as an independent “people’s tribunal” that collects evidence against Israel in Gaza. British Member of Parliament Jeremy Corbyn is another prominent figure within it.
Mamdani’s artist wife, Rama Duwaji, came under fire last week for illustrating a short story that was included in an anthology of writing by young Palestinians co-edited by Abulhawa. Diana Islayih’s “Trail of Soap” is included in “Every Moment is a Life: Gaza in the Time of Genocide,” published earlier this year in English and Arabic by Simon & Schuster.
The same story, using one of Duwaji’s illustrations, was also included in February’s edition of “Everything is Political” magazine, published by Slow Factory.
Mamdani’s spokespeople sought to distance he and his wife from Abulhawa, saying in a statement Duwaji, 28, has “never engaged with or met,” the activist.
But Abulhawa was a featured speaker at Columbia University’s Center for Palestine Studies which Mamdani Sr. — a professor in the school’s Department of Anthropology — has long been associated with, appearing in a bio on their website.
Abulhawa was also among the prominent signatories to a 2018 open letter to members of the Saudi royal family to urge them to release professor and women’s rights activist Hatoon al-Fassi. Mamdani’s filmmaker mother, Mira Nair, as well as his father were also among the signatories.
Abulhawa, a novelist, traveled to Gaza in 2024 to give eight writing workshops for young writers. She is the founder and executive editor of the Palestine Writes Literature Festival as well as Playgrounds for Palestine Inc., a nonprofit founded in 2001.
Playgrounds for Palestine funds the writers’ group, according to federal tax filings, and also spent $255,000 for the “purchase and installation for children’s playground and skateparks” in 2024, at the height of the Gaza war, according to public filings.
The nonprofit and Abulhawa did not return requests for comment Monday.
Abulhawa has shown support for Hamas. In an op-ed published days after the group’s attack on Israel, she called the massacre of 1,200 Israelis “a spectacular moment that shocked the world” and insinuated Israel may have allowed the attack to happen.
“Whether or not Israel indeed knew of the plans in advance, 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,” Abulhawa wrote in a piece for “The Electronic Intifada.”
Abulhawa is also author of “The Scar of David,” originally published in 2006 and later published as “Mornings in Jenin.” The novel tells the story of a Palestinian family’s upheaval at the 1948 founding of Israel.
“Reports show that Rama Duwaji, the First Lady of New York City, chose to illustrate and attach her name to a project by a woman who has a long history of celebrating terror and demonizing Jews, including calling the Hamas-led Oct. 7 attacks ‘a spectacular moment’ and calling Israel a ‘demonic parasite,’ and a litany of vile, antisemitic posts,” said the Anti-Defamation League in a statement Monday.
“Collaborating on a project with Susan Abulhawa goes beyond First Lady Duwaji’s deeply troubling liking of pro-October 7 posts and demonstrates a troubling pattern.”
Duwaji has faced criticism for liking an Instagram post from February 2024 questioning that Hamas committed sexual violence against Israelis during the Oct. 7, 2023, slaughter and also liked another post sharing celebratory images of the attack.
Mamdani condemned Abulhawa’s posts against Jewish people.
For her part, Abulhawa returned fire against Mamdani in a social media post. “You succumbed to forces that seek to pick away at you, at your talented, beautiful wife, and at your work, they will claw harder with each apology or concession you make,” she said in a video posted to X Sunday.
“If you are not careful, they will siphon your soul before you even realize it.”
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