NYC Café Confrontation Between Miss Israel & Mamdani’s Wife Goes Viral

Added: 2026-05-06

[00:00:00]Let's turn now to New York, where the city with the largest total Jewish population in the world continues to suffer a wave of anti-Israel and anti-Semitic incidents. Well, the latest was a protest last night outside the fame Park Avenue synagogue in Midtown Manhattan that was hosting an event to advertise real estate in Israel.

[00:00:21]Demonstrators outside the synagogue clashed with police, waving flags and symbols associated with kamas and hisbala, chanting slogans like death to the IDF and end the Zionist settler state. Now this comes after a congregation and other Jewish sites in the burrow of Queens were defaced with SWAT stickers. Now, although Mayor Zoram Mdani condemned that incident, many in the Jewish community criticized him for enabling an anti-Israel and anti-Jewish atmosphere in the city, including a notedable lack of support for a bill that would limit protest outside houses of worship like synagogues. Now, also criticized is Mayor Mani's wife, Rama Daji, who praised the October 7th attack as resistance on social media posts. And now an encounter in a Brooklyn cafe between Dwaji and the reigning Miss Israel Melanie Shiraz who was also an entrepreneur. She's also an activist.

[00:01:20]That encounter is making some news in New York and elsewhere. And joining us from NYC is Melanie Sherz. Thank you Melanie for joining us. Well, first of all, tell us what happened there when you encountered I guess you could call her the first lady of New York City.

[00:01:36]>> Yeah. So, first of all, thank you for having me and uh Yes. So, as you heard, I was in New York. I was actually in New York for a day. I'm now in Tennessee.

[00:01:44]And uh the reason I was in New York is for uh the consulate of Israel in New York's Independence Day celebration that I was actually the MC of. So, I was having a coffee a few hours before that, just getting ready for the event. And none other than Rama Duaji walks into the very same cafe. What are the odds?

[00:02:04]And not only does she walk into the same cafe, she actually sits right next to me on the bench. So I said to myself, I have seen the rhetoric that this woman has been posting constantly. I have been wanting to speak out about it and now I have an insane opportunity to be able to do so face to face with her. And uh and so yeah, that's that's kind of where I was at. And I thought to myself, you know, that I I don't know how kind she is uh to to the average person. So, I'm going to introduce myself just as Melanie and see if she's uh if she's going to be willing to to even speak with me at all. And she was. She was very very smiley. And I asked her if we could take a photo and she was willing to. And then I told her I was Miss Israel. And once I did, once I told her I was Israeli and Miss Israel, she she very quickly changed her demeanor. She was still very polite and cordial because that's her job as a as the first lady. I I suppose, but it was very clear that she was not very interested in engaging with me. So I I tried to kind of make her more comfortable and really tried to create a productive dialogue out of that situation. And so what I said was, "Look, in all honesty, I of course I've been very disappointed in in seeing some of the rhetoric that you've been pushing and promoting and liking online, but part of my role and part of my ideology as an individual and also as a representative of Israel and as an Israeli is to have productive dialogue with people, no matter what side they stand on, and to ensure that we're not dehumanizing one side or another." And so I asked her if she would like to engage in in some kind of conversation with me by saying this. And I made it clear that I was not recording her so that she would feel comfortable saying whatever she felt like. And she she very much brushed me off in a polite way. Was not very interested in engaging. Kind of just nodded her head and and you know kind of turned to the side. And um and so so that was basically where that went. And I kind of understood at that moment that she was not very interested in hearing my perspective as an Israeli.

[00:04:05]And so I I told her or I asked her, "Have you actually had the chance to hear directly from an Israeli in the past? Have you had conversations with Israelis?" And what she told me was a very dismissive, "Yes. Yes, I have I have Israeli friends or many Israeli friends even," she may have said. I don't remember. Um but but that was basically that. So I asked her, I said, "Okay, fine. I I I I get it. Um would you like to take another picture?" I kind of wanted to see if if if her demeanor would change that drastically and and surely enough she she refused to take another photo with me. She said, "I think that this is I think that that's enough." And um and that was that was the end of the interaction.

[00:04:48]Unfortunately, it's it's it's very disheartening, not only because I think it was it would have been a great opportunity for two public figures that are very vocal about this topic to actually have an interesting discourse.

[00:05:02]She's also the first lady of New York.

[00:05:03]New York is one of the most heavily Jewish cities in the world. It's it's it's really disheartening.

[00:05:09]>> You know what Melanie, let me let me ask you about that because u I should explain to viewers you were born in Israel. You were raised in the in the US and then came back to Israel. So you have I guess ties in both roots in both countries. I was born and raised in New York. You talked about Independence Day celebrations. To me, it was a given that on Israel Independence Day, you have that big parade down Fifth Avenue and of course, you have the mayor of New York marching in the Israel Independence Day uh parade. It's it's still somewhat shocking for me. I mean, I'm just running your counters in New York and people there how they feel about Mayor Mandani and the criticism of him that uh he makes some gestures. For example, I said when that uh uh putting out these uh tweets when that uh synagogue in or the congregation was defaced in Queens, but for example uh not commenting on that protest outside the synagogue, Park Avenue Synagogue last night, not really supporting that bill that would create a safe space around houses of worship. I mean, how do you when you're in New York, how what are you hearing from the people there?

[00:06:17]Look, I mean, the first thing he did when he he came to office after assuring the world that he wasn't obsessed with Israel was to strip Jews of their protections in the city. So, of course, there there is a there is a level of fixation on on on the Jewish people, unfortunately, and to end on Israel consequently that I'm seeing. And in Rama's case, I mean, this this girl, this lady, she she not only liked posts that that um that supported October 7th and everything that happened that day, that horrible day, she also provided illustrations for an author who included rhetoric in her book such as Jews are cockroaches on this in this planet or something along those lines. And so, you know, it's very clear that even if Mandani gestures and and and express his condolences or expresses happy Passover or whatever else he wants to say to performatively uh not look like he's anti-Semitic. In the end of the day, he is married to someone that is supporting that rhetoric. And his only response to it, as I've seen so far, is my wife is a private person and I love her very much.

[00:07:22]That's not that's not enough. That's not accountability. It's it's it's not accountability on on either of their parts. And I see why so many Jews in New York are are terrified of being in New York now and they're they're they're immigrating from New York. It's it's very it's very disheartening, but I I completely understand them. It's it's no longer a safe space for a Jew to be, it seems.

[00:07:44]>> Right. And we just have about a minute left. Melody, you are you've used your platform as this Miss Israel to speak out on behalf of Israel. in just uh in just about a minute you're just what you're hearing now across the country especially among the younger people.

[00:08:00]>> So I've been on a campus tour amongst amongst all these speaking engagements I've had in the last 3 weeks. I've gotten to speak to a lot of young people on on college campuses especially in blue states in the US. And it is very disheartening because what I do see is that people are really trying to polarize the narrative of of everything that they support, but especially the Israel conflict. It's it's very black and white to them. They're unwilling to recognize that they don't have all the information or that it's not so easy to reduce into something so simple to understand. And what I want to urge the the the viewers here to to think about think critically is if a narrative is so easy for you to compartmentalize, it's probably because somebody wants you to to box it in in a very neat way with the bow and and and you know fit it into a certain narrative. And that's not unfort that's unfortunately not how how life works. Life is not that simple. And so if those are the opinions you have, I really urge you to engage in dialogue with others. I would engage drama to engage in dialogue with others.

[00:09:07]>> Okay, we'll have to leave it at that and hopefully that your words will be heated. Uh Melanie Sharas, thank you for joining us on TV. Thank you so much for having