Organizers of the luxury Islamic retreat where New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s wife served as artist-in-residence posted repeated online calls to abolish Israel and cleanse “Palestine” of its “oppressors.”
Just the News reported that Women Sanctuary, the group behind a “Journey through Islamic Calligraphy” retreat in Porto, Portugal, used its Instagram account to demand the end of Israel while New York City first lady Rama Duwaji took part as artist-in-residence.
The posts stretched across more than a year. They used eliminationist language about Israel and framed the conflict in terms that go well beyond ordinary political disagreement. Duwaji’s presence at the event puts the mayor’s household next to a group that did not hide its goals.
New Yorkers who care about secure alliances, honest public leadership, and basic fairness toward Jewish residents now have a clear record to judge. The group’s words are public. The first lady’s role is public. The pairing is hard to dismiss as coincidence.
In September 2024, Women Sanctuary shared a prayer that asked Allah for the “liberation of Palestine.” That post set the tone for what followed.
By March 2025, the account went further. It wrote: “May the winds of freedom sweep across Palestine, ushering in the complete and rightful restoration of the land’s true stewards.” The New York Post reported that language and noted the group’s wider pattern of posts.
In October 2025 the account escalated again. It stated that “the apartheid colonial state of Israel has committed a genocide against the Palestinian people,” then added a direct command.
“Abolish the colonial apartheid state of Israel. Free Palestine.”
Those lines treat Israel’s existence as the problem to be erased. Terms such as “apartheid,” “colonial,” and “genocide” appear inside the group’s own posts; they are not settled facts. They are the organizers’ chosen framing.
The same outlet noted that Women Sanctuary also used the slogan “from the river to the sea” and prayed for Palestine to be cleansed of “oppressors” and “tyranny.” One September 2024 line read: “Cleanse Palestine from tyranny and from its oppressors.”
The Washington Free Beacon reported that Duwaji served as artist-in-residence at the Women Sanctuary gathering inside an 18th-century castle in Porto. Private rooms ran $5,216 for five nights. The first lady ran an illustration workshop tied to Arabic calligraphy, according to that reporting.
Free Beacon described the group’s demand that “Palestine” be cleansed of its “oppressors” and flagged related posts calling for Israel’s abolition. The outlet also reported that the organizers had promoted readings by figures linked to the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, including founder Ghassan Kanafani, and had spotlighted activist Ahed Tamimi. It further stated that Duwaji herself had expressed admiration for PFLP-linked figures such as Leila Khaled and Shadia Abu Ghazaleh.
None of that material is a private diary entry. It sat on public social media and in open promotion of the retreat. A first lady of America’s largest city chose to lend her presence and her craft to the same brand.
Critics already flagged Duwaji’s Portugal Islamic calligraphy retreat as part of a wider pattern of overseas spiritual travel. The Porto stop sits inside that sequence, not outside it.
The Porto retreat was not Duwaji’s only Women Sanctuary appearance. Breitbart reported that she skipped America 250 events to fly from Newark to Palma, Mallorca, for a sold-out “Plants Of The Quran” retreat priced at $3,400. The itinerary ran Wednesday through Monday. She was also listed to help host a follow-up “Mary In The Quran” retreat in Corsica, France, from July 9, 14.
Breitbart noted earlier, since-deleted posts in which Duwaji had praised Palestinian terror groups and reposted a 2015 Tumblr tirade claiming American soldiers “are mercilessly slaughtering 3rd world civilians and fighting to maintain American hegemony.” She issued an April apology for some of that history. The travel choices kept the old record in the news.
Queens Councilwoman Joann Ariola put the America 250 absence in blunt terms.
“Nothing says ‘America 250’ quite like skipping the celebration for a Mediterranean vacation, but I am not surprised because she has made her hatred for America very evident.”
Fox News reported the same Mallorca trip and quoted Staten Island Councilman Frank Morano calling the choice “disappointing” during one of the country’s largest civic milestones. Mamdani’s office said she traveled without a taxpayer-funded NYPD security detail.
That Spain itinerary already fueled criticism of the first lady skipping America’s 250th birthday for another Islamic retreat. The later Portugal stay under the same organizer brand made the association harder to wall off.
Repeated European spiritual travel has become its own storyline. Coverage of plans for a third European Islamic retreat this year framed the trips as a lifestyle choice that sits poorly beside ordinary New Yorkers’ budgets and civic duties.
Separate friction over protection for overseas travel has also followed the couple. One episode involved the NYPD’s public refusal of a police escort for a Syria-Lebanon trip and the mayor’s later claim of staff “miscommunication.”
Jewish New Yorkers watching the city’s climate have taken notice. Investor Charles Kushner said he was leaving the city and pointed at both the mayor and the first lady when he described rising antisemitism. That dispute sits in the same public square as the Women Sanctuary posts.
When a first lady appears as artist-in-residence for organizers who openly call to abolish Israel, the issue stops being abstract. It becomes a question of judgment, associations, and what City Hall is willing to normalize.
The reporting package contains no statement from Duwaji, Mamdani, or Women Sanctuary walking back the Instagram language or explaining the first lady’s decision to participate. The posts remain on the timeline. The retreat role remains on the record.
Women Sanctuary marketed high-end spiritual programming, calligraphy, Quranic themes, castle settings, multi-thousand-dollar rooms. At the same time it published eliminationist slogans about Israel. Those two tracks ran together. Duwaji stepped onto that platform.
New York is home to the largest Jewish population outside Israel. Mayors and their households do not get a free pass on the company they keep when that company calls for a sovereign ally’s erasure. Voters can read the posts themselves. They can weigh the silence that followed.
Public office is not a spa weekend. When the people around a mayor’s household cheer the abolition of Israel, New Yorkers are entitled to treat that as a governing problem, not a private hobby.
