Across India, preparations for Diwali rarely begin with a philosophical argument about good and evil. They begin with the familiar business of making a home ready for the people who belong in it. Floors are cleaned, lamps are arranged, sweets appear in the kitchen, and somebody reminds the children to be careful around the flames. Relatives arrive with gifts, neighbours come calling, and old family stories are told once again. Millions of little lights create a magnificent public spectacle, but much of the true warmth of Diwali is found around the family table.
A few weeks later, a similar sense of anticipation will fill Jewish homes in Israel, India, and across the world. For eight nights of Hanukkah, families gather to light candles, recite blessings, sing familiar songs, and share food. Children watch the number of flames grow from one evening to the next. Grandparents explain why the candles matter, sometimes for the hundredth time, and nobody seems particularly troubled by the repetition. Tradition, after all, is often a story worth hearing again.
The principal day of Diwali falls on 8 November this year, while Hanukkah begins on 4 December. Their dates are determined by different calendars, their religious foundations are distinct, and there is no credible reason to suggest a common historical origin. Yet these two ancient festivals illuminate something strikingly similar. Each places light at the centre of its celebration and, just as importantly, brings that light into the home. Each reminds us that goodness, hope, belonging, and the warmth of family are among the things most worth preserving.
Diwali, also known as Deepavali, takes its name from the idea of rows of lamps. The small earthen diya, filled with oil and fitted with a wick, is among its most recognisable symbols. Across many Hindu traditions, the festival honours the victory of light over darkness, knowledge over ignorance, and good over evil. It is also associated with prosperity, renewal, and the wish that a household may enter a new season with peace and good fortune.
India, however, is far too diverse for Diwali to be reduced to a single narrative. In much of northern India, the festival recalls Lord Rama’s return to Ayodhya after exile and his victory over Ravana. In parts of southern India, the story of Lord Krishna’s defeat of Narakasura carries particular significance. Worship of Goddess Lakshmi, associated with wealth and prosperity, occupies an important place in many homes. Jain tradition commemorates the liberation of Mahavira, while Sikhs mark Bandi Chhor Divas, recalling the release of Guru Hargobind from imprisonment. These observances have their own identities and meanings. Their proximity on the calendar does not make them interchangeable.
Yet the everyday rituals of Diwali offer a shared social language across much of the country. Homes are brightened, colourful rangoli welcomes visitors, relatives exchange mithai, and tables fill with food prepared as much for others as for oneself. Family members who may have spent months apart find a reason to return. Children learn the customs by watching their elders, often with more interest in the sweets than in the finer points of theology. The celebrations surrounding Diwali also honour bonds between siblings and the obligations of affection that extend beyond a single evening. The festival offers a welcome opportunity to repair misunderstandings, renew friendships, and remember people who might otherwise be overlooked.
Hanukkah comes from a very different historical setting. In the second century BCE, the Jewish population of Judea faced religious persecution under the Seleucid ruler Antiochus IV. The revolt led by the Hasmoneans, with Judah Maccabee among its central figures, became a struggle to defend Jewish religious practice and restore worship in Jerusalem. In 164 BCE, the Temple was purified and rededicated. The Hebrew name Hanukkah refers to that dedication, an event that became part of the enduring memory of the Jewish people.
Later Jewish tradition added the account of the miracle of the oil. According to the Babylonian Talmud, a small quantity of ritually pure oil, apparently sufficient for one day, burned for eight. This story is not found in the earlier Books of Maccabees, which focus on the revolt and the rededication of the Temple. The distinction matters to historical accuracy, but it has not diminished the story’s lasting power. One tradition recalls resistance to oppression and the restoration of religious life. The other speaks of hope enduring when the available resources appear painfully small.
In Jewish households, that history has a very human setting. As the Hanukkah candles are lit, parents and children stand together, sing, and watch the flames. There may be a game of dreidel, a plate of latkes, or the familiar sight of sufganiyot, doughnuts filled with jam, which seem to disappear faster than any sensible estimate would allow. Family members visit one another, children enjoy the festive atmosphere, and stories pass between generations. The occasion can be deeply religious, joyfully domestic, or both. Whatever the degree of observance, its emotional centre is often the simple pleasure of being together.
There is a revealing difference in how the two festivals use light. Diwali may bring entire streets to life with rows of diyas glowing almost at once. Hanukkah follows a deliberate progression, with one additional light on the hanukkiah on each successive night, alongside the attendant light used to kindle the others. One creates an immediate sea of illumination; the other allows brightness to accumulate. Neither approach suggests that darkness will kindly remove itself. Someone must take responsibility for lighting the first flame.
What makes the comparison worthwhile is not the convenient claim that the two festivals are identical. They are not. Diwali embraces several religious and regional traditions of victory, renewal, and prosperity. Hanukkah remembers a particular struggle over religious freedom and identity. To respect either festival, one must respect those differences. Shared values become meaningful when they are recognised without requiring anyone to surrender the history that gives them depth.
The family is where those values become more than words. A child who helps place a diya at the doorway or stands beside a parent lighting the hanukkiah learns something about responsibility, continuity, and belonging. The flame is small, but the memory can last a lifetime. In both traditions, the family home becomes a classroom without desks, and affection becomes an exceptionally effective teacher. The warmth is not produced by the oil or wax alone. It comes from the people gathered around it.
The festivals also offer a reminder about the meaning of goodness. Neither a brightly lit house nor an elaborate ceremony is, by itself, proof of virtue. The more demanding question is whether the spirit of the celebration reaches beyond the front door. Does it encourage generosity to those with less? Does it bring comfort to an elderly neighbour, attention to someone who is lonely, or reconciliation where resentment has lingered too long? A lamp shines most convincingly when the values it represents are reflected in the conduct of the people who light it.
For India and Israel, this parallel has a significance extending beyond a pleasant seasonal comparison. Jewish life has deep roots in India, long predating modern diplomatic relations. The Jews of Cochin, the Bene Israel community, and Jewish families from Baghdad and other parts of the Middle East made their homes in Indian society while retaining distinct religious traditions. Their histories offer examples of identity preserved within a wider culture rather than erased by it. That is a valuable lesson at a time when too many societies confuse cultural confidence with suspicion of difference.
An especially evocative detail survives in the history of the Bene Israel of the Konkan coast. Oil pressing was among their traditional occupations, and they became known locally for observing the Saturday Sabbath. No serious historian would use that fact to invent a connection between Diwali and Hanukkah. Yet it is difficult not to appreciate the quiet poetry of the image: an Indian Jewish community associated with the making of oil, a Hindu festival distinguished by oil lamps, and a Jewish festival whose best known legend concerns the endurance of a little oil. Sometimes history offers a lovely coincidence without asking us to turn it into a theory.
Today, conversations about India and Israel understandably centre on defence, agriculture, technology, trade, and innovation. These partnerships are important, and their practical results can be measured. But relations between societies grow stronger when people also understand the festivals, memories, and family traditions of the other. Respect for Diwali does not ask a Jew to abandon Hanukkah. Appreciation of Hanukkah does not require someone celebrating Diwali to change a single religious belief. Curiosity and friendship are entirely compatible with conviction.
This matters in a world where identity is too often presented as a reason for hostility and disagreement is mistaken for an invitation to contempt. The warmth of Diwali and Hanukkah suggests a more generous possibility. A family may be proud of its traditions without closing its door to a neighbour. A community may honour its past without living in fear of the future. And a society may recognise the dignity of another faith without weakening its own.
As the diyas of Diwali begin to glow across India and the Hanukkah candles follow in Jewish homes a few weeks later, the flames will carry different prayers and different memories. That is precisely as it should be. Their common gift is the conviction that darkness, however formidable, need not have the final word. Light begins with a modest act. Warmth grows when it is shared. And if a spirited debate should arise over whether mithai or sufganiyot deserves pride of place on the festive table, perhaps the most sensible diplomatic solution is to serve both.