Donald Trump makes Hanukkah tweet, gets Menorah candles entirely wrong
Donald Trump briefly paused from his usual Twitter antics of aligning himself with Vladimir Putin and dishonestly attacking reporters in order to offer the rare tweet which wasn’t confrontational in nature – but he still managed to get it entirely wrong. Trump posted a message which read “Wishing you a bright and Happy Hanukkah” along with a picture of a menorah. But the candles on the menorah were lit in the wrong fashion no matter which Jewish rabbinical school of thought one might adhere to.
Trump tweeted a picture of a menorah with all nine candles lit on the first night of Hanukkah. But the current prevailing Jewish tradition, as dictated by the House of Hillel, is to light only one candle on the first night of Hanukkah. But even those who instead adhere to the House of Shammai are only lighting eight of the nine candles on the first night of Hanukkah. In other words, no matter how you approach it, Donald Trump’s menorah is patently wrong.
So does this matter? That’s for observers to decide. But now that Donald Trump is claiming the title of “president-elect” and claims to be representing all of the people of the United States, one might think he would take a moment to learn one of the most basic traditions of a major American religion before officially tweeting about it and getting it entirely wrong. Will he follow it up tomorrow by tweeting a bamboo tree for Christmas?
