Philadelphia Teacher Admits Fabricating Palestinian Identity After Activist Groups Confront Her

A Philadelphia public school teacher has admitted to fabricating a Palestinian identity for years after fellow activists confronted her and pressed her for the truth.

Hannah Gann, a teacher at the Workshop School in Philadelphia, had presented herself within local racial justice and pro-Palestinian circles as a Black Palestinian activist, including altering her skin appearance, changing her accent, and wearing a keffiyeh. She was active for years with the Racial Justice Organizing Committee and Philly Educators for Palestine.

Members of those groups confronted Gann last week and, after roughly an hour of questioning, she acknowledged she is a white woman of Jewish heritage. The groups described her family background as tied to an Israeli settler family, and said they were “stunned, saddened, and angered” by the revelation. Both organizations have since removed her from their ranks.

Gann posted a video to Instagram afterward acknowledging she had “hid the truth or outright lied about my background to everyone in my life.”

According to reporting from the Daily Mail, Gann had claimed she had a Palestinian-born grandfather and relatives in Palestine to whom she said she was sending money, which she used to explain her own financial situation. Records and former classmates instead indicate her grandfather was born in Baltimore, and that relatives she described as living in Palestine actually live in the Israeli-occupied West Bank. Classmates from her college years said she was known then as a white Jewish woman.

Gann had been a visible figure at pro-Palestinian protests for years, including remarks that circulated online after October 7, in which she referred to the attackers as “martyrs” and made comments about police. In one widely shared clip, she said: “When a Palestinian child picks up a rock or a slingshot in the face of Israeli tanks or machine guns, we owe them that same energy. We owe them to take it to these streets and f*** the police until Palestine is free.”

Following the disclosure of her fabricated background, Gann said the episode “does not mean anyone else who speaks up for Palestine is lying and does not erase the urgency of listening to voices on the ground.” She said she believed it remained important to continue addressing what she called “the mortally urgent need to address ICE and police brutality here as well as the prison industrial complex.”