Before he hit a Passover seder, Zohran Mamdani shared an Eid dinner with Hasan Piker

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🗣 Mamdani shares Eid dinner with Hasan Piker

• Mamdani attended an Eid dinner on Friday with Hasan Piker, a leftist streamer who has drawn allegations of antisemitism, Politico reported.

• A spokesperson for the mayor said the private event, which was excluded from his public schedule, included hundreds of people. The spokeperson declined to tell Politico who organized the dinner or where it took place.

• But Piker revealed on a stream Saturday that he had a “very productive” conversation with Mamdani, who he called a “charmer.” Piker also said first lady Rama Duwaji was present and called her “dope.”

• In response to a listener who asked if Mamdani disavowed him, Piker laughed and said, “No, he did not disavow me.” Mamdani was criticized during the mayoral race for interviewing with Piker, who has made controversial remarks, including calling Orthodox Jews “inbred” and saying that Hamas was “the lesser of two evils” in comparison with Israel.

• Piker’s megaphone has driven a wedge in the Democratic Party. Effie Phillips-Staley, who is running for Congress in a heavily Jewish district just outside NYC, sparked backlash from Democratic officials for appearing with Piker on Saturday.

• Phillips-Staley’s position on Israel has morphed since last July, when she said “the U.S. has to continue to be a critical ally to Israel” and did not support restricting aid to Israel. After she went on a trip to Israel and the West Bank in February, she became strongly critical of Israel and said she now supports cutting U.S. aid. (Read our Joseph Strauss’s full report.)

🍷 Tensions flare at Passover seder over Mamdani’s inclusion

• Mayor Zohran Mamdani was briefly heckled during an appearance at a Passover seder at City Winery on Monday night, as he spoke about “the rising tide of antisemitism.”

• A person in the back of the room interrupted the mayor, shouting, “Every Jewish organization is a target.” They were shushed and chastised for “xenophobia” by other attendees. Mamdani acknowledged the heckler by saying, “This is New York City, and we love to be here,” adding the city was no place for “complete decorum.”

• The crowd at the annual seder hosted by Jewish entrepreneur Michael Dorf included other skeptics of Mamdani, whose responses to antisemitic incidents and continued alignment with pro-Palestinian activists have strained his ties with some segments of the Jewish community.

• “I have to say I didn’t vote for him,” one attendee told our Grace Gilson. “I have certain feelings about him that I think a lot of other people have, but that’s neither here nor there. But that was kind of surprising that a couple of people kind of went out of their way to heckle.”

• Another attendee questioned Mamdani’s participation in the holiday. “It feels inauthentic to have him speak about matzah or Judaism, when the whole holiday is about Jews that were enslaved by Pharaoh and then went back to the homeland of Israel,” she said.

• The evening also featured Syrian Jewish comedian Olga Namer, who joked that Mamdani “likes half of me,” along with former CNN anchor Don Lemon, Israeli musician David Broza and Rabbi Amichai Lau-Lavie. Observant Jewish comedian Modi Rosenfeld announced before the event that he canceled his appearance once he became aware of Mamdani’s inclusion.

🔎 Can Rama Duwaji be a ‘private person’?

• It’s a question that has irked even some of Mamdani’s allies, as he attempts to dodge scrutiny of the first lady’s social media history.

• In response to questions about Duwaji’s past activity online, which included engaging with posts that celebrated Hamas and using offensive racial language, Mamdani has argued that Duwaji is a “private person” who holds no role in his administration.

• But his critics and some of his allies disagree. “As the leader of New York City, he has to start addressing this. It’s his responsibility. It’s not good enough to just say she’s ‘a private person’ — she’s not,” Tanesha Grant, who runs Moms United For Black Lives NYC, told Politico.

• Five other people close to the mayor anonymously told the outlet that they consider Duwaji a public figure. “She is the first lady of New York City. She has a police detail and a government staff,” one elected official said. “She would need to do an interview, better explain herself, and have her do some visits and meetings with key constituencies, like Jewish museums.”

🚨 Swastika graffiti in Brooklyn

• Five swastikas were found graffitied on private property last night on the border of Brighton Beach and Coney Island, according to state senator Jessica Scarcella-Spanton.

• Scarcella-Spanton said her team contacted the NYPD and the building management about the vandalism, “which should be deemed a hate crime.”

• She added that the graffiti struck as residents prepared for Passover in an area that was “home to thousands of Jewish New Yorkers,” and “just a couple of hundred feet away from the Sea Breeze Jewish Center, Chabad of West Brighton, and Chabad Neshama Camp.”

📚 NYU closes its Abu Dhabi campus amid Iran war

• New York University has closed its Abu Dhabi campus after Iran threatened strikes on U.S. campuses in the Middle East as retaliation for U.S.-Israeli strikes on Iranian universities, Washington Square News reported. Classes will continue remotely.

• Administrators said the campus was shutting down access to all students, faculty and staff after Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps warned that campuses were “legitimate targets” on Saturday.

• Other U.S. campuses in Qatar have also closed their sites and moved online, including programs affiliated with Georgetown, Northwestern, Texas A&M, Virginia Commonwealth, the Rochester Institute of Technology and Weill Cornell Medicine. It is unclear if NYU’s study abroad site in Tel Aviv, roughly two miles away from initial missile attacks, has shut down its campus.