'Shame! Shame! Shame!': Mamdani heckled at NYC Passover seder hosted by Jewish entrepreneur Michael Dorf

Socialist New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani was heckled when he spoke at a Passover seder event this week. Someone shouted that “every Jewish organization is a target” while Mamdani was speaking.

Mamdani had been talking about a spike in antisemitism that has “caused enormous pain for so many Jewish New Yorkers,” when the heckler shouted from the back of the room during Jewish entrepreneur Michael Dorf’s 33rd annual “Downtown Seder,” per the Jewish Telegraphic Agency.

Attendees who were there responded by shushing the heckler, and a person yelled, "Stop the xenophobia, let him speak." The event had already sparked controversy as Israeli-American comic Modi Rosenfeld pulled out of his performance when he found out Mamdani would attend. 

“This is New York City, and we love to be here,” Mamdani added. “I say it because we know that if there was complete decorum anywhere that we were, then we would have to ask ourselves if we had left the city that we love, and it is important to be here and to acknowledge that this is what it means to love and to lead the place that we call home.”

Mamdani has faced heavy scrutiny on the topic of Israel as well as antisemitism. One of the latest controversies involves his wife, Rama Duwaji, who has faced backlash after antisemitic and racist posts from her old social media accounts surfaced online.

“I have to say I didn’t vote for him,” one attendee at the event said. “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.”

One attendee told the New York Post that when Mamdani was first introduced at the event, a woman at one of the tables yelled, "Shame, shame, shame." 

“People seemed very upset that he was there. There was a lot of murmuring," the attendee said. Another attendee said the situation was "wild" and commented, "it's never like that," in reference to Mamdani getting heckled.