Across New York State on April 2, thousands of people left their Democratic presidential primary ballots blank to pressure President Joe Biden to call for a permanent cease-fire in Gaza. In one neighborhood — Astoria, Queens — that pressure manifested itself at the dinner table, too.

On a Saturday evening in late March, toward the end of Ramadan, socialist New York State Assembly member Zohran Mamdani organized an iftar gathering that demonstrated how Gaza, in this district of about twenty thousand people, is a hyperlocal issue. People made their way home to break their fasts under a “Ramadan Mubarak” twinkle-lights banner strung across the street, as Mamdani greeted guests at the neighborhood Afghan restaurant Sami’s Kabab House.

Mamdani chatted with Freddy Zeideida, known as the “Falafel King,” who’d come to the assemblyman’s iftar straight from work in his own restaurant, wearing his mismatched crocs, T-shirt, and keffiyeh. Bar owners, Democratic Socialists of America members, botanic-garden workers, tenant organizers, museum curators, and three different coffee-shop proprietors were among the crowd who joined them.