A white Philadelphia teacher and activist has admitted to lying about her identity for years, falsely claiming Palestinian and Black heritage while working with Palestinian and racial justice organizations.
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teacher → admit → organizations
Hannah Gann posted a statement to her Instagram page last week, admitting she has no Palestinian or Tunisian heritage and describing herself as a “white woman of significant privilege and wealth.”
In a follow-up video, Gann said she was beginning to try to take accountability and asked that no one judge the groups she worked with based on her lies.
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she → post → groups
She said she deceived “everyone” in her life.
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she → say → life
“There is not a single person on this planet, no friend, no fellow organizer, no one in my family, no professional connection, no secret op or handler who knew what I was doing,” she said.
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she → be → what
“I hid my family’s background from everyone in Philly, and also hid from the people in my own family what I was doing.”
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I → hide → what
Commenters on Gann’s original post dubbed her the “Palestinian Rachel Dolezal” and “Temu Rachel Dolezal,” a reference to the former NAACP chapter president who pretended to be Black.
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who → dub → president
Dolezal, who legally changed her name to Nkechi Diallo in 2016, was outed by her parents as being “Caucasian by birth.”
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who → change → birth
“I still believe in every cause I ever supported, in the ongoing fight for justice, and in the righteousness of liberation for all oppressed peoples,” Gann said in the video.
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Gann → believe → video
“I still believe that theirs is the real story, and mine is just a sick, deluded distraction.”
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mine → believe → ?
Gann declined to comment further to NBC News on Wednesday, referring back to her video as her only public statement.
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Gann → decline → statement
Another Philadelphia teacher, Keziah Ridgeway posted her own video Saturday, saying Gann deceived her over their nearly decade-long friendship.
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Gann → post → friendship
Ridgeway said that when the two of them met around 2018, she had no awareness of Gann’s actual background — only that Gann was “speaking up for the Black community, for the Palestinian community.”
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Gann → say → community
It was not until 2023, Ridgeway said, that Gann — after a trip she described as being to “Israel/Palestine” — told her she had Palestinian Jewish ancestry and Muslim relatives.
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she → say → ancestry
On Labor Day, Ridgeway said she received a message from a non-Palestinian member of the Philly Palestine Coalitiion that Gann had been pretending to be Palestinian, that the claim was false, and that the group planned to release a statement after meeting that Sunday.
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group → say → statement
Gann denied the allegations when Ridgeway confronted her, according to Ridgeway, before offering more details — claiming her father’s father died when her father was 13 and that she’d been raised by a Palestinian Jewish woman.
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she → deny → woman
Ridgeway said Gann’s grandfather actually died when her father was 23.
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father → say → ?
Ridgeway, who wasn’t a member of the coalition and couldn’t attend its meeting, later reviewed the group’s report on Gann.
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who → attend → Gann
She said she confronted Gann again last week, asking her to call her father so Ridgeway could question him directly.
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Ridgeway → say → him
“She hung up on her father and snapped at me when I tried to ask another question,” Ridgeway said.
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Ridgeway → hang → question
“And 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.”
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nobody → realize → truth
Gann addressed Ridgeway’s video in her own, saying “Everything she said is true, and I fully corroborate.”
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I → address → own
A Philadelphia Inquirer report said that the newspaper had obtained a copy of the coalition’s report on Gann, which found that the grandfather she claimed was Palestinian-born was actually born in Baltimore.
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she → say → Baltimore
The report also said she had family living in Israel.
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she → say → Israel
The Philly Palestine Coalition did not immediately respond to a request for comment to NBC News on Wednesday.
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Coalition → respond → Wednesday
The Inquirer identified Gann as a teacher at the Workshop School, a Philadelphia School District high school.
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Inquirer → identify → School
A district spokesperson did not immediately respond to a phone call from NBC News but told the Inquirer that the district was aware of “social media posts concerning a district employee,” and said it was offering support to affected students and staff.
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it → respond → students
Two organizations, Philly Educators for Palestine and Racial Justice Organizing Committee, issued a joint statement on Friday saying they were “stunned, saddened and angered by this betrayal.”
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they → issue → betrayal
“Members met with Hannah and questioned her on her background on Thursday and after over an hour of discussion, Hannah finally admitted she lied,” the statement said.
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statement → meet → discussion
The groups said they asked Gann to publicly acknowledge that she “is a white woman of Jewish heritage and an Israeli settler family,” and said they would no longer work with her and that she was not welcome in their spaces.
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she → say → spaces
The statement acknowledged the harm caused and expressed hope that people who had worked with Gann in good faith would not be discredited as a result.
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who → acknowledge → result
“We will not allow her actions to distract us from our purpose or fracture the community we’ve worked hard to build,” the organizations said.
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organizations → allow → community
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