In just about a month, we will once again celebrate Halloween—a night in which young children wear costumes, ring the doorbells of neighbors, and collect their own stash of candies which will unlikely last very long. But this Halloween, a question some of us will be asking is what mask Hannah Gann will be wearing.
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Gann is a tenth-grade teacher in Philadelphia who has established her bonafides as one of, if not the city’s most active, antisemite. It is difficult to believe she resides in the city founded in 1682 by William Penn, who had given it the name as the “City of Brotherly Love.” A Quaker, Penn sought to establish a tone of peace, tolerance, and religious freedom for the city by giving it such a nickname.
Yet, once she settled in Philadelphia, Gann created a new image for herself; she pretended to be a black Palestinian, promoting pro-Palestinian causes. She told people she was financially stressed as she was sending money back to her Palestinian family, ultimately accepting donations from those who offered them.
As a teacher, Gann, seeking to educate others due to her wide range of minority influences, organized teach-ins about Gaza, mentored black students, and promoted the right of teachers to advocate political causes. Her antisemitism caused the group “Accuracy in Media” to park a truck outside the school where she taught, bearing her photo in a Palestinian headscarf labeling her as “Philadelphia’s leading antisemite.”
But suspicions eventually arose about Gann as she alternated among claiming to be by Palestinian, Tunisian, and black. Finally, the group she was affiliated with—“Philly Educators for Palestine”—found itself having to announce she was a fraud. The group gave itself a pat on the back, suggesting it took a significant effort on its part to get Gann to admit her deception, acknowledging its internal efforts reflected by “the significant and emotional labor used to bring this information forward, particularly the heavy lifting of Palestinian and Black women.”
The group apparently released the bombshell news first stating, “We are stunned, saddened and angered by this betrayal.” It explained the group had broken all ties with Gann and suggested she make a public mea culpa. But what probably was the most shocking thing for the group to learn was that “she is a white woman of Jewish heritage and an Israeli settler family.”
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Hannah’s mea culpa included a string of acknowledgements, such as admitting she was “a white woman of significant privilege and wealth,” lying “about my identity and…lying for years,” feeling “shame and sorrow and regret” and understanding how her deceptions triggered anger and suspicions about fellow activists. She added that she does not “seek forgiveness I do not deserve.”
Of course, knowing Gann’s apologies were not the result of a guilty conscience but, rather, of pressure from her group which had let the fraudulent cat out of the bag, brings into question whether she did so out of any sense of remorse for her actions.
As Gann has been unresponsive to media questions, we can only speculate what her motivation for the deception was. If she had a true belief in the Palestinian cause, one would think she could have had far more of an impact as a pro-Palestine activist by being truthful about her Jewish heritage. A Jewish pro-Palestine activist would have been much more newsworthy for the media than a Palestinian pro-Palestine activist. Nor did Gann really need the money she had accepted from others.
Of course another answer that would be helpful in assessing Gann’s motivation were she to honestly open up is sharing with us to whom it is she now wishes to apologize. Is it to the members of her pro-Palestine group, or to Palestinians, or to the media or, most unlikely, to her fellow Jews? At a minimum, hopefully the school system for which she works will help to make her claim of financial stress a correct one by firing her. Her actions obviously undermine her credibility with students.
Ironically, a 2024 article about Gann showed her wearing a T-shirt which bore words promoting teaching about Palestine, teaching black history, etc. and concluding with these two words at the very end: “Teach Truth.” The article described her as “one of several leading antiracist teachers in Philadelphia targeted for their opposition to Israel’s genocide in Gaza.”
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Gann’s outfit for Halloween should be obvious–any mask that has two faces.
Image generated by ChatGPT.