New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s wife, Rama Duwaji, will reportedly honor Mary, mother of Jesus, as a “Palestinian woman giving birth under occupation” while co-hosting a women-only Muslim retreat in Corsica, France, that began on Thursday.
Duwaji, 29, departed the United States for Spain before the July 4 holiday to attend the sold-out, five-night “spiritual” retreat organized by The Women Sanctuary. The retreat is being held at a 15th-century monastery in Corsica, France. According to the group’s website, participants will explore “the legacy of Mary, the most honored woman in the Qur’an” through lectures, workshops and prayer. Duwaji is listed as the retreat’s artist-in-residence and will lead an illustration workshop.
Private accommodations ranged from €2,890 (about $3,300) to €4,600 (about $5,250), according to the organizers.
“To state the obvious: Jesus was Jewish and born in the land of Judea to his Jewish mother, Mary,” a spokesperson for the Israeli Consulate in New York stated. “Any attempt to portray him as being born to a ‘Palestinian’ mother,’ or allude to him being Muslim, is a historical distortion and a cynical and gross attempt to exploit his story and use it to serve contemporary political goals.”
“New York City’s first lady, Rama Duwaji, is pushing a false and dangerous anti-Israel narrative,” the spokesperson said. “Jesus lived centuries before the founding of Islam, and applying contemporary political identities to him distorts the historical record.”
“Saying Jesus is Palestinian is as ridiculous as saying the New York Knicks lost the 2026 NBA Championship,” the spokesperson added.
Trisha Posner, founder of Antisemitism Watch, questioned whether anyone would tell Duwaji “that the mother of Jesus, Mary, was a Jewish woman from Judea.”
“I’d tell her myself, but she conveniently deleted her X account to scrub her history of celebrating Oct. 7,” Posner wrote. “What a shame.”
“They can’t erase history, no matter how hard they try,” she added. “But it does tell you who they really are.”
