Demonstrators protest outside of an Ed Sheeran concert on Sept. 19, 2026, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. (Joe Lamberti / Getty Images)
By Michael Austin September 27, 2026 at 10:15am
A teacher in Philadelphia known as a prominent activist in anti-Israel circles has confessed to faking her supposed black and Arab racial identity, with an activist group revealing she is actually a white and Jewish woman.
Hannah Gann, who teaches in the Philadelphia School District, has claimed that she is Palestinian and black, according to a Sept. 22 report from The Philadelphia Inquirer.
Because of her activism, she was even the target of a mobile billboard parking outside her school, calling her “Philadelphia’s Leading Antisemite.”
But the Racial Justice Organizing Committee and Philly Educators for Palestine issued a statement saying that “members met with Hannah and questioned her about her background on Thursday and after an hour of discussion, Hannah finally admitted she lied.”
She’s being called the “Palestinian Rachel Dolezal” online after admitting she lied about being Palestinian and Black.
Philadelphia teacher and anti-Israel activist Hannah Gann now says she is “a White woman of significant privilege and wealth” after fellow activists questioned… pic.twitter.com/IsHTJI5kkZ
— Fox News (@FoxNews) September 24, 2026
“We asked her to publicly acknowledge that she is a white woman of Jewish heritage and an Israeli settler family,” the group added.
Gann herself said in an Instagram post that she was “a white woman of significant privilege and wealth,” and that she lied about her racial identity for multiple years.
“I hid the truth or outright lied about my background to everyone in my life,” Gann remarked.
“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. I hid my family’s background from everyone in Philly and also hid from the people in my own family what I was doing.”
The Philadelphia Inquirer reported that a classmate from the University of Pennsylvania said she was known during school “as a self-proclaimed white Jewish woman with family in the occupied West Bank.”
You can’t make this stuff up!
Woke anti-Israel activist Hannah Gann has been dubbed the “Palestinian Rachel Dolezal” after being exposed as a white Jewish woman who misrepresented her identity for years.
Gann, a Philadelphia teacher, admitted to portraying herself as a… pic.twitter.com/3iSNxJbR1K
— I Meme Therefore I Am 🇺🇸 (@ImMeme0) September 23, 2026
“I watched her sudden transformation after she returned to Philly from the Peace Corps [in Rwanda],” the classmate said. “She was clearly making herself look darker using makeup and fake tan, and speaking using [African American Vernacular English.]”
The New York Post reported that some on social media have dubbed Gann the “Palestinian Rachel Dolezal,” referring to a former chapter president of the NAACP who faked her supposed black racial identity.
The outlet added that Gann once spoke at a pro-Palestine protest held outside a Jewish bakery, where she said that “when a Palestinian child picks of a rock or a slingshot in the face of Israeli tanks or machine guns, we owe them that same energy.”
“We owe them to take it to these streets and [mess with] the police until Palestine is free.”
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Michael wrote for several entertainment news outlets before joining The Western Journal in 2020. He now serves as Managing Editor, which involves managing the editorial team and operations, guiding the publication’s editorial direction, and writing, editing, curating and assigning stories as needed.
Birthplace
Ames, Iowa
Nationality
American
Education
Iowa State University
Topics of Expertise
Cultural Politics, Pop Culture, Christian-Conservatism
