New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani tried to shift blame to Eric Adams after his office released an immigrant-enclave map that left out Jewish, Italian and Irish communities while naming neighborhoods like “Little Palestine.”
Pressed Friday about the omissions, Mamdani pointed back to City Hall before he arrived.
“This map was initially created by the prior administration in 2023, and when we inherited it, we added a few additional neighborhoods,” Mamdani said.
“It’s clearly not an exhaustive list of the more than 200 ethnic communities that call our city home, and we’re going to be making additional changes in the future to reflect that.”
“That includes adding ‘Little Italy’ to the map,” he noted.
Mayor Mamdani's "immigrant enclaves" map erases Little Italy and other historic Italian neighborhoods, plus major Jewish and Irish ones.
His response? Blame the last admin, "we'll add it later," ZERO apologies to Italians or Jews.
He doesn't care about NYC's foundational… pic.twitter.com/Etypt36ff4
— Moshe Spern (@moshespern) July 10, 2026
Critics treated the omissions as deliberate. Former L.A. mayoral candidate Spencer Pratt blasted Mamdani for “deliberate subversion” by leaving out Italians, Jews and Irish residents.
Queens Republican Councilwoman Joann Ariola told the New York Post that the graphic made it appear City Hall did not think those groups counted.
“They were able to get a Little Bhod-Tibet in there, but what about the original ‘Little neighborhood,’ Little Italy?” Ariola questioned.
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“And what about areas like Woodlawn, in the Bronx, which are home to plenty of Irish immigrants? Do the Irish and Italians not count for the Mayor’s office?”
State Assemblyman Kalman Yeger accused Mamdani of “erasing” Jews.
“Mr. Mamdani’s erasing Jews is an essential part of his brand. No surprise,” he remarked.
Jewish writer Avital Chizhik-Goldschmidt also criticized the map in an X post that pointed to the city’s Jewish population.
“The Mayor’s Office made a map of NYC’s immigrant enclaves: Little Africa, Little Poland, Little Palestine. But they just couldn’t figure out how to represent 11% of the city. Couldn’t decipher where the Jews are from,” she wrote.
Italian-American Civil Rights League President Mike Crispi treated the omission of Little Italy as a direct insult.
“This is not a clerical error. This is cultural erasure,” Crispi said Wednesday. “Little Italy is sacred ground. It is where Italian immigrants came with nothing, worked like hell, opened shops, raised families, built churches, fed the city, and helped make New York what it is.”
“Mamdani’s City Hall can find room for every fashionable progressive constituency, but somehow it cannot find Little Italy,” Crispi continued.
“Our culture is good enough for their photo ops, our food is good enough for their fundraisers, and our neighborhoods are good enough for tourism dollars — but when it comes time to recognize Italian Americans, they erase us.”
The Italian-American Civil Rights League urged Mamdani to revise the map and issue an apology, while arguing that any city-backed effort highlighting immigrant history should also acknowledge neighborhoods with deep Italian American roots.
The omitted groups are not small pieces of the city’s history. World Population Review puts Italian Americans at about 11.8% of New Yorkers as of 2024.
Neilsberg Research put Irish Americans at more than 4.4% as of 2023, and the United Jewish Appeal-Federation of New York reported that approximately 18% of Brooklyn households and 10% of Queens households had at least one Jewish person as of 2023.
Mamdani’s office defended the map as a tourist guide focused on ethnic enclaves and foreign-born populations, not religion, saying it “does not highlight religious groups” and “highlights neighborhoods in New York City that have substantial foreign-born populations from regions and countries around the world.”
The office also said the immigrant enclave series began under Adams and that more neighborhoods would be added “in the upcoming months.”
The pressure on Mamdani’s orbit also extended to his wife, Rama Duwaji.
Duwaji is reportedly helping lead an Islamic women’s “spiritual wellness” gathering in Corsica, where promotional materials describe the Virgin Mary through a Palestinian identity and occupation-focused lens.
“She is the only woman mentioned by name in the Qur’an — mentioned 34 times — and the only one to have an entire chapter revealed in her name,” The Women Sanctuary website says of Mary.
“Surah Maryam. Her story is not only one of divine motherhood, but of unwavering faith, sacred retreat, and total devotion to Allah.”
During the Fourth of July weekend, Duwaji took part in The Women Sanctuary’s sold-out “Plants of the Quran” retreat in Mallorca, Spain, serving as both a host and the event’s “artist in residence,” according to The New York Post.
The retreat organization promotes its programs as a blend of Islamic learning and personal reflection, but public materials for the France gathering do not name Duwaji among the hosts.
According to The Post, Duwaji was expected to help lead the fully booked “Mary In The Quran” retreat, which runs from Thursday through July 14 and costs participants upward of $4,000.
City Hall also faced questions over a planned meeting between a senior Mamdani administration official and Iran’s ambassador to the United Nations.
The planned Tuesday meeting would have put Commissioner Ana María Archila, head of the Mamdani administration’s Office of International Affairs, across from Iran’s permanent representative to the United Nations, Amir-Saeid Iravani, City Journal first reported.
After the State Department learned of the plan, the meeting was canceled, and federal officials met with Mamdani officials about acceptable conduct, a State Department official told City Journal.
“That meeting did not take place, it will not take place and I did not know about it until there was a press inquiry regarding it,” Mamdani commented on Friday.
Asked whether he supported such a meeting, Mamdani ended the exchange.
“I’ve said that that meeting will not be taking place. Thank you all very much,” he deferred.
