Hannah Gann, a white Philadelphia teacher and activist, confessed on Instagram to lying about having Palestinian and Black heritage for years while working with racial justice organizations. In a video statement, Gann admitted she has no such background and deceived everyone in her life. Keziah Ridgeway, a fellow Philadelphia teacher who was friends with Gann for nearly a decade, revealed in her own video that Gann had misled her about having Palestinian Jewish ancestry and Muslim relatives, which she discovered to be false after confronting Gann last week.
Written locally by qwen2.5:14b on 2026-09-23,
using this article's own text rather than the other coverage of the
same event (that is the story summary below).
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.
asserted
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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