New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s anti-American past has once again caught up with him in a scandalous new report published on Wednesday.
A woman who worked on a New York State Senate campaign managed by Mamdani was arrested in 2025 and convicted in connection with making a “terroristic threat” against Jewish students targeting a Brooklyn public high school, according to campaign-finance records and law-enforcement reporting.
Iman Abdul worked as a paid canvasser for journalist Ross Barkan’s unsuccessful 2018 Democratic campaign for the New York State Senate, when Mamdani served first as the campaign’s field director and later as its campaign manager.
Seven years later, Abdul was arrested by the New York Police Department after authorities said she posted the location of Leon M. Goldstein High School for the Sciences in Brooklyn alongside language suggesting the school could be attacked because of students she characterized as Zionists.
“If anyone needs a public school in NYC to attack for whatever reason … Lexus driving Israhell [sic] loving Zionists [sic] all attend here,” she added in a caption to the now-deleted post.
The connection to Mamdani was highlighted in August by the Washington Free Beacon, which reported that New York campaign-finance records show Team Barkan paid Abdul $540 between July and August 2018 for canvassing work.
According to an NYPD spokesperson quoted by the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, Abdul, then 27, was arrested after allegedly making what police described as a “terroristic threat” against Leon M. Goldstein High School for the Sciences in Manhattan Beach, Brooklyn.
Authorities said the Instagram post included a Google Maps image identifying the school and a caption suggesting it as a place to “attack,” while disparagingly referring to students as Israel-supporting Zionists.
Police arrested Abdul on Aug. 8, 2025, on charges including aggravated harassment, making a threat of mass harm, and acting in a manner injurious to a child.
The school is a public high school located on the Kingsborough Community College campus in Brooklyn.
The social-media post attracted rapid condemnation because it explicitly identified a school attended by minors and appeared to single out students based on perceived connections to Israel and Judaism.
Abdul later resolved the case with a guilty plea.
According to reporting published in August 2026, she pleaded guilty Aug. 5 to aggravated harassment as a hate crime, a felony under New York law.
Iman Abdul, who previously said she worked on Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s 2018 campaign, urged her 25,000 followers to “attack” a public school, singling out its “Zionist” students and those who had participated in Birthright.
She was arrested for making a terroristic threat and… pic.twitter.com/6Pn4rwI5tO
— Canary Mission (@canarymission) August 12, 2026
The other charges stemming from her arrest were dismissed as part of the disposition. Brooklyn’s left-wing district attorney, Eric Gonzalez, gave her a sweetheart deal that allowed her to avoid jail time.
In exchange for completing 20 counseling sessions, the charges would be reduced to a misdemeanor, Susan B. Edelman reported on her Substack.
The resurfacing of Abdul’s 2018 campaign work has renewed attention on Mamdani’s political organizing career before he became an elected official and eventually mayor of New York City.
Mamdani entered electoral politics as an organizer several years before winning his own Assembly seat. He worked on Khader El-Yateem’s 2017 City Council campaign in Brooklyn and later managed Barkan’s Senate campaign before joining Tiffany Cabán’s 2019 campaign for Queens district attorney.
Barkan sought the Democratic nomination for a Brooklyn state Senate seat in 2018 but lost the primary to Andrew Gounardes, who went on to defeat Republican incumbent Marty Golden in the general election.
There is no evidence in the reporting that Mamdani had any involvement in Abdul’s 2025 social-media post or her subsequent criminal case.
The events were separated by approximately seven years, and Abdul’s threatening post occurred long after the Barkan campaign had ended.
The significance of the newly reported connection is therefore historical: Abdul briefly worked for a political campaign whose field operation Mamdani helped build and later managed.
Mamdani has faced broader scrutiny over charges of antisemitism in the past in New York and over his own long-standing criticism of Israel.
Mamdani has repeatedly said criticism of the Israeli government and support for Palestinian rights should not be conflated with antisemitism, while also saying his administration has a responsibility to protect Jewish New Yorkers from threats and hate crimes.
This article may contain commentary which reflects the author's opinion.
