A prominent pro-Palestinian activist from Philadelphia has found herself at the center of a controversy in the United States after it emerged that for years she had lied about her background and presented herself as being of Palestinian descent and part of the Black community — when in fact she is white on all sides of her family, has Jewish roots and even has Israeli relatives who “live in settlements.”
Two organizations she belonged to, which exposed the deception, announced that they were severing all ties with her over what they called a “betrayal.” She herself issued an apology, asking the public not to allow her actions to obscure the suffering of real minorities or distract from what she described as Israel’s genocide in Gaza.
The activist, Hannah Gann, is a Philadelphia teacher at the Workshop School and a longtime member of the Racial Justice Organizing Committee, or RJOC, and Philly Educators for Palestine, or PEFP.
Since Hamas’ October 7 terrorist attack and the outbreak of the Swords of Iron war, she had placed herself at the forefront of educational and activist work on behalf of Palestinians in Philadelphia. According to accounts, she regularly presented herself as a young woman of Palestinian descent with roots in the Black community.
She occasionally referred to Palestinian relatives and, among other things, claimed that her grandfather had been “born in Palestine,” although it has since emerged that he was born in Baltimore.
Acquaintances said she also repeatedly claimed she was short of money because she was sending cash to family members in Palestine, prompting some people to donate money to her.
In recent years, Gann was filmed speaking and participating in a range of pro-Palestinian events, some of which she posted herself on Instagram. Among other things, she took part as an educator in an informational and educational event about “scholasticide” in Gaza.
She became such a prominent pro-Palestinian activist in the area that in 2024 she became the target of a campaign involving a mobile billboard parked outside her school. It featured a photograph of her wearing a keffiyeh alongside the words: “Hannah Gann: 10th-grade teacher and Philadelphia’s leading antisemite.”
Gann’s lies were exposed after information reached the two organizations to which she belonged, RJOC and PEFP.
A promotional poster for a pro-Palestinian event on Hannah Gann's Instagram page
Over the weekend, the organizations issued a joint statement announcing that they were cutting all ties with her after determining that she had “completely lied about her identity and background.”
They said they had asked Gann to publicly acknowledge that she is a white woman of Jewish descent from “a family of Israeli settlers.”
“We will no longer work with Hannah, and she will no longer be welcome in any of our organizing spaces,” the organizations said.
“We recognize the profound harm caused by this: to Palestinians whose identity and struggle were appropriated, to the Black community, to young people, activists and organizations whose trust and resources were exploited.”
The two organizations said they were shocked, saddened and appalled by “this betrayal.”
Some in the United States are already calling Gann the “Palestinian Rachel Dolezal,” because her story recalls that of Rachel Dolezal, an American civil rights activist, lecturer in African American studies and former president of the Spokane, Washington, chapter of the NAACP, who became the focus of a similar controversy about a decade ago.
Hannah Gannn apologized in a tearful video on her Instagram page
Dolezal presented herself for years as a Black woman, as the daughter of African American parents and as someone whose childhood had been shaped by racism. She even altered her appearance with tanning and Afro hairstyles.
In 2015, her parents revealed to the media that she was in fact a white woman of European descent with no Black ancestry. The affair sparked a major public controversy in the United States over racial impersonation, or “blackfishing,” identity appropriation and privilege.
After the two pro-Palestinian organizations announced they were cutting ties with Gann, a former college classmate said Gann had been known at the time as someone who identified as a white Jewish woman whose family lived in the “occupied West Bank.”
According to that student, she was surprised to discover that Gann had changed her appearance from the way she looked during their college years and had “clearly made herself look darker through makeup and artificial tanning, and began speaking in African American English.”
Gann’s critics have stressed in recent days that their anger is not over the fact that she is Jewish or has Israeli connections, but over the fact that she lied and appropriated the suffering of others.
Sharif El-mekki, a prominent Philadelphia educator and founder of the Center for Black Educator Development, wrote in social media posts that a person does not have to be Black or Palestinian to support those communities, “but honesty is the price of admission.”
He described Gann’s lies as “disturbing, infuriating and enraging,” in part because “she is afforded the privilege of apologizing after being exposed and ultimately returning to the privilege she had all along.”
“Actual Palestinians, Muslims, Arabs, Black people and Africans cannot put their identities aside when the consequences arrive,” he wrote. “They cannot choose not to become targets of suspicion, surveillance, hostility or professional consequences tied to who they actually are.”
He warned that Gann’s false representations would now have real consequences for Black people and Palestinians, because they are likely to face greater scrutiny over their backgrounds as a result of her lies.
In a video Gann posted to her Instagram account following the controversy, she apologized and admitted: “One of the most upsetting aspects of confronting what I did is seeing how the backlash is harming people, groups, communities and causes that I genuinely care about.
“I understand that it is too late for me to repair all the harm I have caused, but I am determined to try to do everything I can.
“I concealed the truth or outright lied about my background to every person in my life. There is not a single person on Earth who knew what I had done.
“The fact that I lied about my identity does not mean that every other person speaking out for Palestine is lying, and it does not diminish the urgency of listening to voices on the ground — voices that are courageously telling us about an ongoing genocide, even as the Israeli state deliberately marks journalists and others who speak the truth as targets for elimination.”