Hassaan Chaudhary, a member of Mamdani’s transition team, deleted his social media accounts after the rhetoric came to light
A top adviser on New York City mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani’s (D.) transition team used the word “Jew” as a slur, praised vilely anti-Semitic former Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad for saying Israel is a “cancer which will be eliminated very soon,” and called Israel a “bloody country,” according to social media posts uncovered Sunday.
Most of the posts were authored around 10 years ago by Hassaan Chaudhary, who described himself on his LinkedIn as the political director for Mamdani’s transition and inaugural committee and the director of Muslim engagement for the Mamdani campaign, the New York Post reported Sunday. He has since deleted his LinkedIn and X accounts.
“There is a barbaric nation who’s killing indigents and innocent Palestinians called ISRAEL,” Chaudhary wrote in a November 2012 X post. “TALK about it. #stupid media.”
“In another post, he called Israel a ‘bloody country’ for claiming a pro-Palestian [sic] resolution was undermining peace instead of promoting it,” the Post reported.
Chaudhary went so far as to praise Ahmadinejad as “fearless” for having “declared Israel as cancer which will be eliminated very soon.”
The Mamdani adviser in another 2012 post used the anti-Semitic Urdu phrase “Jew hoga tera baap,” which translates to “Jew will be your father.”
Chaudhary shared anti-Semitic content until at least December of last year, when he retweeted a post targeting Pennsylvania governor Josh Shapiro (D.), who is Jewish and pro-Israel. “If Luigi [Mangione] had shot a Gazan toddler instead, Josh Shapiro would have given him a medal,” the post read. Mangione is the accused murderer of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson.
Jewish activists expressed revulsion at the posts. “This is Adolf Hitler language,” former Brooklyn assemblyman Dov Hikind, the founder of the group Americans Against Antisemitism, told the Post. “It’s antisemitic. It’s a horror show.”
“Mamdani sets the tone,” Hikind went on. “It’s a hate-filled administration.”
Longtime Democratic strategist Hank Sheinkopf struck a similar note. “This advisor to the mayor is clearly by his own words a Jew-hater,” he said. “The only issue: it always begins with the Jews but never ends with the Jews. Who’s next on the list?”
Many Jewish New Yorkers are worried following Mamdani’s victory in the mayoral election. Mamdani said during the campaign that he stands by “the idea” of the anti-Semitic phrase “globalize the intifada,” which calls for violence against Jews and the State of Israel.
The U.S. Holocaust Museum in June blasted Mamdani for defending the phrase. “Since 1987 Jews have been attacked and murdered under its banner,” the museum said. “All leaders must condemn its use and the abuse of history.”
Months after the Holocaust Museum’s denunciation, Mamdani campaigned with a radical imam who once advocated for a “jihad” in New York City.
He has also pledged to arrest Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu should the Israeli leader come to New York.
Chaudhary apologized for his comments in a statement to the Post. “I apologize for my tweets, as they do not reflect my current views, or represent who I am today,” he said. “Those comments from over a decade ago are not in line with how I see the world, and I look back at that rhetoric and mindset with deep regret.”
A campaign spokeswoman contradicted Chaudhary’s description of his work for Mamdani, saying he is only the mayor-elect’s Muslim outreach director and not the transition team’s political director. While the spokeswoman said the comments “are reprehensible and in no way reflect the views of the Mayor-elect or this transition,” she did not say whether Chaudhary would be fired from the transition team.
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