Fox anchor Ainsley Earhardt interviews Kathie Lee Gifford during”Fox & Friends” at Fox News Channel Studios in New York City, Nov. 14, 2019. (John Lamparski/Getty Images)

(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.”

Forwarding the News

Thoughtful, balanced reporting from the Forward and around the web, bringing you updated news and analysis each day.

Terms(Required)

I agree to the Forward's Terms of Service and Privacy Policy

Email(Required)

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.

The Christmas tree outside of Fox News has caught on fire. pic.twitter.com/No7SVK0JeF

— Adam Parkhomenko (@AdamParkhomenko) December 8, 2021

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.

The Forward is free to read, but it isn’t free to produce

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward.

Now more than ever, American Jews need independent news they can trust, with reporting driven by truth, not ideology. We serve you, not any ideological agenda.

At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse.

Readers like you make it all possible. Support our work by becoming a Forward Member and connect with our journalism and your community.

This is a great time to support independent Jewish journalism you rely on. Make a gift today!

—  Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

Support our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.

$90 $180

$360

Other amount