Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
Fast Forward

‘It’s about Hanukkah,’ Fox News host says about Christmas trees after her network’s burns down

(JTA) — For one thing, Hanukkah is over. For another, you mark the holiday by burning candles, not entire fir trees.

Maybe that was what Fox News host Ainsley Earhardt was getting at when she said that the man arrested for allegedly burning down the Christmas tree outside Fox News Channel headquarters in New York was attacking, among other things, Hanukkah.

“It’s a tree that unites us that brings us together, it is about the Christmas spirit, it is about the holiday season, it is about Jesus, it is about Hanukkah,” Earhardt said on Fox & Friends, the morning show she co-hosts. “It is about everything we stand for as a country and being able to worship the way you want to worship, it makes me so mad.”

Hanukkah commemorates the rededication of the Jewish temple several centuries before the birth of Jesus. The two holidays, Christmas and Hanukkah, are coincidental in their midwinter timings, but in little else.

There is suggestive evidence in the New Testament that Jesus attended a Hanukkah event. The party, described in John 10:22, was not the most successful of mixers: Some angry Jews confronted Jesus about his claim to messiahhood, and it almost ended in a stoning. The apostle does not report any tree-burnings, however.

One man has been arrested in the Fox News tree-burning, which fully engulfed the 50-foot structure shortly after midnight Wednesday. The right-wing network had dedicated its “All-American Tree,” which had been decorated with red, white and blue ornaments, over the weekend.


The post ‘It’s about Hanukkah,’ Fox News host says about Christmas trees after her network’s burns down appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines. You must credit the Forward, retain our pixel and preserve our canonical link in Google search.  See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.