A Philadelphia teacher who built her activist reputation around identities she did not possess has admitted years of deception, leaving Palestinian and racial justice organisations confronting what they describe as a profound betrayal.
A prominent pro-Palestinian activist in the United States has been exposed for fabricating her Palestinian and Black heritage, while fellow organisers say her actual family background includes Jewish ancestry and ties to Israeli settlers.
Hannah Gann, a Philadelphia public school teacher and former organiser with Philly Educators for Palestine, admitted that she had lied about her identity for years after activists confronted her about inconsistencies in her background. The controversy has earned her comparisons to Rachel Dolezal, the former American civil rights official exposed in 2015 for falsely presenting herself as Black.
The scandal has gone beyond false claims of ancestry. According to reporting by the Philadelphia Inquirer, Gann told people she was sending money to relatives in Palestine, prompting some to give her financial assistance. Fellow organisers have accused her of exploiting the trust and resources of communities whose struggles she claimed as her own.
A Palestinian grandfather who was born in Baltimore
The deception extended to Gann’s family history.
She repeatedly referred to Palestinian relatives and claimed that her grandfather had been born in Palestine. But a dossier compiled by the Philly Palestine Coalition, reviewed by the Philadelphia Inquirer, found that he had actually been born in Baltimore, Maryland, citing historical draft records and family immigration documents.
The coalition’s research also indicated that Gann’s relatives abroad live in Israel. Fellow organisers described her as coming from a family of Israeli settlers, a background they said she had concealed while presenting herself as Palestinian.
The financial allegations have added another dimension to the controversy. According to the coalition’s dossier, Gann told people she was struggling financially because she was sending money to family members in Palestine. Some people subsequently gave her money.
The amounts involved have not been established, and the reported donations do not by themselves establish a criminal offence.
From racial justice organiser to public confession
Gann’s invented identity helped shape her public role in Philadelphia’s activist community.
She was a prominent member of Philly Educators for Palestine and the Racial Justice Organizing Committee, participated in events about Israel’s destruction of Gaza’s education system and defended a fellow teacher disciplined over pro-Palestinian social media posts.
Promotional material for a 2024 teach-in identified her as Palestinian American.
Her claims about being Black have also come under scrutiny.
A former University of Pennsylvania classmate told the Philadelphia Inquirer that Gann had previously identified herself as a white Jewish woman with relatives in the occupied West Bank. The classmate alleged that Gann later began darkening her appearance with makeup and artificial tanning products and adopting African American speech patterns after returning from Peace Corps service in Rwanda.
The revelations eventually prompted members of the two activist organisations to confront her. After questioning her for more than an hour, they said, she admitted that her account of her background was false.
Both organisations have permanently severed ties with Gann and barred her from their organising spaces.
In a subsequent Instagram apology, Gann acknowledged that she had fabricated her Palestinian and Tunisian ancestry, describing herself as a white woman with considerable wealth and privilege.
She said her deception had developed from partial truths into outright falsehoods and insisted that neither her family nor the activists working alongside her had known what she was doing.
Gann also denied having operated on behalf of any secret organisation or handler. There is no verified evidence that she was working for Israeli intelligence or carrying out a coordinated infiltration operation.
The people left to deal with the damage
For the Palestinian and Black activists who worked alongside Gann, the controversy has consequences beyond the humiliation of discovering that a trusted colleague had invented her background.
The organisations said her actions had exploited their trust, appropriated experiences of oppression and diverted attention and resources from the communities they were intended to support.
Their concerns extend particularly to students at the Workshop School, the predominantly Black Philadelphia high school where Gann teaches.
In a September 24 statement, the groups called on the Philadelphia School District to hold her accountable and provide support to students who had trusted her as a teacher and mentor. They warned that her deception could undermine those students’ trust in adults who had taught them about identity and belonging.
The district has confirmed that it is aware of the controversy and is making support available to affected students and staff. It has declined to discuss possible personnel consequences.
Gann has maintained that her advocacy for Palestinians was genuine despite the false identity she constructed around it. In her apology, she urged the public not to use her deception to discredit other Palestine solidarity activists or Palestinian accounts of their own experiences.
For her former colleagues, however, the issue is not whether a white Jewish woman can support Palestinian liberation. Their accusation is that Gann could have worked alongside them openly but instead invented a personal history of Palestinian and Black suffering to establish credibility and gain their trust.
That is the betrayal at the centre of the scandal: a woman who could have stood in solidarity with communities facing discrimination chose instead to claim their identities as her own.
