Jewish teacher in Philadelphia pretended to be Palestinian for years

SEPTEMBER 24, 2026 03:11A Jewish public school teacher and pro-Palestinian advocate in Philadelphia has admitted to fabricating Palestinian, Tunisian, and Black heritage to her colleagues for years, in a case that some online commenters are dubbing “the Palestinian Rachel Dolezal.”Hannah Gann posted confessions and apologies to social media this week, following confrontations from local pro-Palestinian groups she had worked with. In her apologies, she identified herself as “a white woman with significant privilege and wealth” who has “no Palestinian or Tunisian heritage.”A Jewish Telegraphic Agency request for comment to Gann was not immediately returned.Two local activist groups Gann had been involved with, Philly Educators for Palestine and Racial Justice Organizing Committee, said in their own statement that Gann was also “of Jewish heritage and [part of] an Israeli settler family.” They further accused Gann of falsely claiming to be Black at various points, until they confronted her about her background days ago.Comparisons to Dolezal, a white woman who posed as Black for years, taught Africana college courses and held a leadership role with a local NAACP branch before being exposed in 2015, spread over the Internet on Wednesday.Pro-Palestinian protesters demonstrate outside Ed Sheeran's concert venue, in Philadelphia Sunday, 20th September 2026 (credit: REUTERS/EDUARDO MUNOZ)Gann says she 'outright lied' to everyone about her background“I hid the truth or outright lied about my background to everyone in my life,” Gann, a teacher at West Philadelphia’s The Workshop School, said in her own Instagram video message on Monday. “I hid my family’s background from everyone in Philly and also hid from the people in my own family what I was doing.”Neither of Gann’s visible social media apologies mentioned Jewish heritage. But the Philadelphia Inquirer, citing internal documents from the activist groups, reported that she had identified herself in college as a “Jewish woman with family in the occupied West Bank.” Gann had also told colleagues her grandfather was born in Palestine, when he was reportedly born in Baltimore, according to documents cited by the Inquirer. Fellow activists accused her of having darkened her skin using makeup and fake tan and adopting a Black American accent after returning from a stint in the Peace Corps in Rwanda.As with Dolezal, commenters accused Gann of posing as a member of a marginalized group of color to gain clout.“When marginalization becomes a form of social currency some people will always do this,” one account under the name “regretmaxxing” wrote in Gann’s comments.Gann had made the pro-Palestinian cause central to her identity over the years, including a teach-in at her school in 2024 to protest “scholasticide” in Gaza, the Inquirer reported. That year she also told a local media outlet that the right-wing group Accuracy in Media had displayed her name on a truck calling her “Philadelphia’s Leading Antisemite.” Accuracy in Media, which has targeted activists in other states using similar methods, confirmed to JTA that they had also done so to Gann.Gann remains a firm supporter of Palestinians“Hannah Gann remains one of Philadelphia’s leading antisemites,” the group’s founder, Adam Guillette, said in a statement, linking to a video of his group’s truck displaying the message outside the school where Gann worked.Delivering testimony to the Philadelphia Board of Education in December 2025, Gann, wearing a keffiyeh, urged them to “treat Islamophobia, anti-Black and anti-Palestinian racism just as seriously as you treat allegations of antisemitism.”“Why are Jewish staff members’ experiences immediately assumed to indicate systemic failures, while Black, brown and Muslim students’ testimonies are treated as isolated incidents?” she continued, shortly before a board member cut off her mic.A fellow teacher of Gann’s said on Instagram that Gann had told her, following a trip to Israel in 2023, that she had both Jewish and Palestinian people in her family, later claiming that her grandfather had been an anti-Zionist Jew born in Mandatory Palestine who left over disagreements with the direction of Israel.“We will no longer work with Hannah, and she will no longer be welcome in any of our organizing spaces,” the pro-Palestinian groups said in their own statement.A biography of Gann still visible on the West Philly Participatory Defense Hub, a different local organizing group, describes her as having “loved ones directly impacted by the criminal (in)justice system” and notes that she is a member of The First Unitarian Church.In her apology, which she posted on Yom Kippur, Gann argued that her advocacy was genuine even though her persona was not.“The fact that I lied about who I was 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 added that she would be “deleting anything posted by Zionists.”Follow us on Google