White Teacher Faked Black and Palestinian Heritage for Years

2 min read

A Philadelphia teacher, Hannah Gann, has been exposed for falsely claiming to have Black and Palestinian heritage, drawing comparisons to Rachel Dolezal, the former NAACP president who falsely identified as Black. Gann, a well-known radical-left activist, was forced to publicly admit she was not who she claimed to be.

“I lied about my identity and have been lying for years,” Gann wrote in an Instagram post. “I have no Palestinian or Tunisian heritage. I am a white woman of significant privilege and wealth,” she stated, acknowledging that her supporters had been manipulated.

False Claims and Radical Activism

Gann, described as a staunch figure in left-wing activist circles in Philadelphia, presented herself as a mixed-race woman with Black and Palestinian heritage. In reality, she is white and Israeli, according to reports from the New York Post.

“Members met with Hannah and questioned her about her background on Thursday and after an hour of discussion, Hannah finally admitted she lied,” said the Racial Justice Organizing Committee and Philly Educators for Palestine. These groups were “stunned, saddened, and angered by this betrayal.”

Deception and Betrayal

Gann, who was listed in materials for a 2024 West Philly “teach-in” on “scholasticide” in Gaza as a Palestinian-American, also admitted to hiding her pro-Palestinian activism from her family to maintain her lie. “I hid the truth or outright lied about my background to everyone in my life,” she said, adding that the deception included her own family.

“I allowed half-truths and obfuscations to grow into outright lies” because she “genuinely wanted to commit to the work I was doing,” Gann stated, claiming she still believed in the causes she supported.

Friendship Betrayal

Another Philadelphia teacher, Keziah Ridgeway, posted a video Saturday, saying Gann deceived her over their nearly decade-long friendship. Ridgeway said she had no awareness of Gann’s actual background until 2023, when Gann claimed to have Palestinian Jewish ancestry and Muslim relatives.

Ridgeway confronted Gann after receiving a report from a Palestinian activist who heard her confession. Gann denied her lies, claiming her father’s father died when her father was 13 and that she had been raised by a Palestinian Jewish woman. Ridgeway later asked Gann to call her father for verification, but Gann hung up on her and snapped at her.

“In that moment, I realized that her father didn’t know, her family didn’t know that she was here in this city, lying about being a black woman to her students, about being Palestinian, and nobody in her family knew the truth,” Ridgeway said.

Source: PJ Media