What better way to celebrate the sixth night of Chanukah than hearing the candle blessings in traditional Indian Jewish melodies, the lighting of a channukiah from Cochin Jews and then, of course, enjoying a scrumptious veggie Indian meal?

That was part of the festive scene in the Washington, D.C. last night as about 250 American Jewish and American Indian leaders crowded into the home of a gracious Ambassador Meera Shankar.

One of the more interesting aspects to me was that Indian-Israeli ties (which in Washington is a harbinger of ties with American Jewish leadership) were only cemented with full diplomatic relations in 1992 (made possible by India’s moving away from being a leader of the “non-aligned” nations, basically a diplomatic front for the Soviet Union, which itself literally fell apart in late December 1991). Since then, however, India and Israel – and by extension U.S. Jewish groups – have worked hard at securing cultural and military cooperation.

Tragically, as noted by Rabbi Levi Shem-Tov, the head Chabad Lubavitch rabbi in the nation’s capital, the ties were violently reaffirmed about one year ago when terrorists attacked Mumbai. One of their pre-determined targets was the city’s Chabad house, an assault that resulted in the murder of an Israeli-born Chabad rabbi, his wife and some children. “That day the darkness won,” the rabbi said. “But every day since then we have worked together to share the light.”

Israeli Ambassador Michael Oren noted that we were fortunate to be living in a time of a tremendous flowering of the hundreds of years old U.S. relationship with Israel (aka the Holy Land) and as India – now the world’s second most populous nation – furthers its multi-layered bonds with Israel and the Jewish people.

For her part, Ambassador Shankar correctly said that there has never been anti-Semitism in India and that the country’s Jews – many of whom now live in Israel (about 5,000 or so remain) – have been integral to her nation’s success.

For more on the Jews of India, check out these websites: http://www.jewsofindia.org/, http://www.haruth.com/AsianIndia.html and http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Judaism/indians.html .