‘Jeopardy!’ can’t decide if Bethlehem is In Palestine or Israel

by Marcy Oster | January 13, 2020
( [link to www.jta.org (secure)] — Is Jesus’ birthplace, the Church of the Nativity, located in Israel or Palestine?
According to the popular prime time game show “Jeopardy!,” the answer just may be both.

At the end of the first round on Friday night’s show, part of its popular
Greatest Of All Time tournament, one question remained in the usually-a-slam-dunk
$200 slot under the heading “Where’s that Church?”

The answer: “Built in the 300s A.D., the Church of the Nativity.”

Returning champion, who was leading at the end of the round, Katie Needle of Brooklyn, N.Y.
buzzed in with the question: “What is Palestine?”

Host Alex Trebek informed her that her answer was incorrect.

Last-place contestant Jack McGuire, from San Antonio, Texas, then buzzed in with “What is Israel?”
This answer got the nod and $200 for McGuire.

Even before the commercial break was over, social media went into over-drive with
those insisting that Needle was right and others doubling down on Israel as the correct answer.

And when the show came back from the commercial break, Needle’s score, not McGuire’s,
was 200 higher. This means the judges decided that her answer was, after all, correct.
But Trebek did not provide an explanation for his viewing public.