The Samaritans ( Shomronim, as-S?mariyy?n) are an ethnoreligious group of the Levant, descended from ancient Semitic inhabitants of the region. Religiously the Samaritans are adherents of Samaritanism, an Abrahamic religion closely related to Judaism. Based on the Samaritan Torah, Samaritans claim their worship is the true religion of the ancient Israelites prior to the Babylonian Exile, preserved by those who remained in the Land of Israel, as opposed to Judaism, which they assert is a related but altered and amended religion, brought back by those returning from exile.
Ancestrally, Samaritans claim descent from a group of Israelite inhabitants of the ancient Levant from the tribes of Ephraim and Manasseh (the two sons of Joseph son of Jacob) as well as some descendance from the priestly tribe of Levi, who have connections to ancient Samaria from the period of their entry into the land of Canaan, while some suggest that it was from the beginning of the Babylonian Exile up to the Samaritan Kingdom of Baba Rabba. The Samaritans, however, derive their name not from this geographical designation, but rather from the Hebrew term Shamerim ????????, "Keepers [of the Law]".
In the Talmud, a central post-Second Temple religious text of Judaism, Samaritan claim of ancestral origin was disputed, and in those texts they are called Cutheans (, Kuthim), referring to the ancient city of Cuthah (Kutha), geographically located in what is today Iraq. In the Biblical account, however, Cuthah was just one of several cities from which people were brought to Samaria, and the Samaritans were later called "Cutheans" to spite them, with the added assertion that the men of Kuth made Nergal their god. Modern genetics has suggested some truth to both the claims of the Samaritans and the mainstream Jewish accounts in the Talmud.
Historically, Samaritans were a large community ? up to more than a million in late Roman times, but were then gradually reduced to several tens of thousands a few centuries ago ? their unprecedented demographic shrinkage has been a result of various historical events, including, most notably, the bloody suppression of the Third Samaritan Revolt (529 CE) against the Byzantine Christian rulers, and mass conversion to Islam in the Early Muslim period of Palestine. According to their tally, there were 751 Samaritans as of January 1, 2012, living exclusively in two localities, one in Kiryat Luza on Mount Gerizim near the city of Nablus in the West Bank, and the other in the Israeli city of Holon. Also eight families in Gaza City were found to be Samaritans. There are followers of various backgrounds adhering to Samaritan traditions outside of Israel, especially in the United States.
With the revival of Hebrew as a spoken language by Jews in Israel, and its growth and officialization following the establishment of the state, most Samaritans in Israel today speak Modern Hebrew. The most recent spoken mother tongue of the Samaritans was Arabic, as it is for those in the West Bank city of Nablus. For liturgical purposes, Samaritan Hebrew, Samaritan Aramaic, and Samaritan Arabic are used, all of which are written in the Samaritan alphabet, a variant of the Old Hebrew alphabet, distinct from the so-called square script Hebrew alphabet of Jews and Judaism, which is a stylized form of the Aramaic alphabet. Hebrew and later Aramaic were languages in use by the Jewish and Samaritan inhabitants of Judea prior to the Roman exile.
History and origin
Samaritan sources
According to Samaritan tradition, Mount Gerizim was the original Holy Place of the Israelites from the time that Joshua conquered Canaan and the tribes of Israel settled the land. The reference to Mount Gerizim derives from the biblical story of Moses ordering Joshua to take the Twelve Tribes of Israel, (the number of which did not include the priestly tribe of Levi) to the mountains by Nablus and place half of the tribes, six in number, on the top of Mount Gerizim, the Mount of the Blessing, and the other half in Mount Ebal, the Mount of the Curse. The two mountains were used to symbolize the significance of the commandments and serve as a warning to whoever disobeyed them (Deut. 11:29; 27:12; Josh. 8:33).The Samaritans have insisted that they are direct descendants of the Northern Israelite tribes of Ephraim and Manasseh, who survived the destruction of the Northern Kingdom of Israel by the Assyrians in 722 BCE. The inscription of Sargon II records the deportation of a relatively small proportion of the Israelites from Samaria (27,290, according to the annals), so it is quite possible that a sizable population remained that could identify themselves as Israelites, the term that the Samaritans prefer for themselves.
Samaritan historiography places the basic schism from the remaining part of Israel after the tribes of Israel conquered and returned to the land of Canaan, led by Joshua. After Joshua's death, Eli the priest left the tabernacle which Moses erected in the desert and established on Mount Gerizim, and built another one under his own rule in the hills of Shiloh.
Abu l-Fath, who in the 14th century wrote a major work of Samaritan history, comments on Samaritan origins as follows:
Further, the Samaritan Chronicle Adler, or New Chronicle, believed to have been composed in the 18th century using earlier chronicles as sources states:
Jewish sources
The emergence of the Samaritans as an ethnic and religious community distinct from other Levant peoples appears to have occurred at some point after the Assyrian conquest of the Israelite Kingdom of Israel in approximately 721 BCE. The records of Sargon II of Assyria indicate that he deported 27,290 inhabitants of the former kingdom.Jewish tradition maintains a different origin for the Samaritans. The Talmud accounts for a people called "Cuthim" on a number of occasions, mentioning their arrival by the hands of the Assyrians. According to 2 Kings and Josephus the people of Israel were removed by the king of the Assyrians (Sargon II) to Halah, to Gozan on the Khabur River and to the towns of the Medes. The king of the Assyrians then brought people from Babylon, Cuthah, Avah, Emath, and Sepharvaim to place in Samaria. Because God sent lions among them to kill them, the king of the Assyrians sent one of the priests from Bethel to teach the new settlers about God's ordinances. The eventual result was that the new settlers worshipped both the God of the land and their own gods from the countries from which they came.
This account is contradicted by the version in Chronicles, where, following Samaria's destruction, King Hezekiah is depicted as endeavouring to draw the Ephraimites and Manassites closer to Judah. Temple repairs at the time of Josiah were financed by moneys from all "the remnant of Israel" in Samaria, including from Manasseh, Ephraim and Benjamin. Jeremiah likewise speaks of people from Shechem, Shiloh and Samaria who brought offerings of frankioncense and grain to the house of the Lord. Chronicles makes no mention of an Assyrian resettlement. Yitzakh Magen argues that the version of Chronicles is perhaps closer to the historical truth, and that the Assyrian settlement was unsuccessful, a notable population remained in Samaria, part of which, following the conquest of Judah, fled south and settled there as refugees.
A Midrash (Genesis Rabbah Sect. 94) relates about an encounter between Rabbi Meir and a Samaritan. The story that developed includes the following dialogue: :Rabbi Meir: What tribe are you from? :The Samaritan: From Joseph. :Rabbi Meir : No! :The Samaritan: From which one then? :Rabbi Meir : From Issachar. :The Samaritan: How do you figure? :Rabbi Meir: For it is written (Gen 46:13): The sons of Issachar: Tola, Puvah, Iob, and Shimron. These are the Samaritans (shamray).
Zertal dates the Assyrian onslaught at 721 BCE to 647 BCE and discusses three waves of imported settlers. He shows that Mesopotamian pottery in Samaritan territory cluster around the lands of Menasheh and that the type of pottery found was produced around 689 BCE. Some date their split with the Jews to the time of Nehemiah, Ezra, and the building of the Second Temple in Jerusalem after the Babylonian exile. Returning exiles considered the Samaritans to be non-Israelites and, thus, not fit for this religious work.
The Encyclopaedia Judaica (under "Samaritans") summarizes both past and the present views on the Samaritans' origins. It says:
Furthermore, to this day the Samaritans claim descent from the tribe of Joseph:
Tensions between the Samaritans and the Judeans
The narratives in Genesis about the rivalries among the twelve sons of Jacob describe tensions between north and south. Those were temporarily united under the strong kingship of David and Solomon, but at the death of Solomon, the kingdom split into two: northern Israel with its capital Samaria and southern Judea with its capital Jerusalem.The Deuteronomistic Historians, writing in Judah, saw northern Israel as a sinful kingdom, divinely punished for its idolatry and iniquity by being destroyed by the Assyrians in 720 BCE. (Ironically, the Chronicler is very generous to the south Judah and considers it God's will to recover the chosen people that they were destroyed by Babylon and exiled to Babylon.)
The tensions continued in the postexilic period. According to the books of Ezra and Nehemiah, Ezra-Nehemiah is hostile toward its northern neighbors and considers the northern Israel except for the "true Israel". Chronicles is more inclusive than Ezra-Nehemiah since for the Chronicler the ideal is of one Israel with twelve tribes; the Chronicler concentrates on Judah and ignores northern Israel.
Unlike the Chronicler, the Samaritans claimed that they were the true Israel who were descendants of the "lost" tribes taken into Assyrian captivity. They had their own temple on Mount Gerizim and claimed that it was the original sanctuary. Moreover, they claimed that their version of the Pentateuch was the original and that the Jews had a falsified text produced by Ezra during the Babylonian exile.
Both Jewish and Samaritan religious leaders taught that it was wrong to have any contact with the opposite group, and neither was to enter each other's territories or even to speak to one another. During the New Testament period, although the tensions went unrecognized by Roman authorities, Josephus reports numerous violent confrontations between Jews and Samaritans throughout the first half of the first century.
Rejection by Judeans
According to the Jewish version of events, when the Judean exile ended in 538 BCE and the exiles began returning home from Babylon, they found their former homeland populated by other people who claimed the land as their own and Jerusalem, their former glorious capital, in ruins. The inhabitants worshiped the Pagan gods, but when the then-sparsely populated areas became infested with dangerous wild beasts, they appealed to the king of Assyria for Israelite priests to instruct them on how to worship the "God of that country." The result was a syncretistic religion, in which national groups worshiped the Hebrew god, but they also served their own gods in accordance with the customs of the nations from which they had been brought.
According to , the Persian emperor, Cyrus the Great (reigned 559 BCE ? 530 BCE), permitted the return of the exiles to their homeland and ordered the rebuilding of the Temple in Jerusalem (Zion). The prophet Isaiah identified Cyrus as "the Lord's Messiah" (Mashiach; see ). The word "Messiah" refers to an anointed one, such as a king or priest.
says that the local inhabitants of the land offered to assist with the building of the new temple during the time of Zerubbabel, but their offer was rejected. According to Ezra, this rejection precipitated a further interference not only with the rebuilding of the temple but also with the reconstruction of Jerusalem.
The text is not clear on this matter, but one possibility is that these "people of the land" were thought of as Samaritans. We do know that Samaritan and Jewish alienation increased, and that the Samaritans eventually built their own temple on Mount Gerizim, near Shechem.
The rebuilding of the Jewish Temple in Jerusalem took several decades. The project was first led by Sheshbazzar (about 538 BCE), later by Zerubbabel and Jeshua, and later still by Haggai and Zechariah (520?515 BCE). The work was completed in 515 BCE.
The term "Cuthim" applied by Jews to the Samaritans had clear pejorative connotations, implying that they were interlopers brought in from Kutha in Mesopotamia and rejecting their claim of descent from the ancient Tribes of Israel.
Assyrian account of the conquest and settlement of Samaria
However, the following account of the Assyrian kings, which was among the archaeological discoveries in Babylon, differs from the Samaritan and Jewish Biblical accounts:Also,
Further history
Temple on Mount Gerizim
Archaeological excavations at Mount Gerizim indicate that a Samaritan temple was built there in the first half of the 5th century BCE. The date of the schism between Samaritans and Jews is unknown, but by the early 4th century BCE the communities seem to have had distinctive practices and communal separation.According to Samaritans, it was on Mount Gerizim that Abraham was commanded by God to offer Isaac, his son, as a sacrifice . In both narratives, God then causes the sacrifice to be interrupted, explaining that this was the ultimate test of Abraham's obedience, as a result of which all the world would receive blessing.
The Torah mentions the place where God shall choose to establish His name (Deut 12:5), and Judaism takes this to refer to Jerusalem. However, the Samaritan text speaks of the place where God has chosen to establish His name, and Samaritans identify it as Mount Gerizim, making it the focus of their spiritual values.
The legitimacy of the Samaritan temple was attacked by Jewish scholars including Andronicus ben Meshullam.
In the Christian Bible, the Gospel of John relates an encounter between a Samaritan woman and Jesus in which she asserts that the mountain was the center of their worship .
Antiochus IV Epiphanes and Hellenization
In the 2nd century BCE a particularly bitter series of events eventually led to a revolution of the Judeans against their Greek oppressors.Antiochus IV Epiphanes was on the throne of the Seleucid Empire from 175 to 163 BCE. His determined policy was to Hellenize his entire kingdom and standardize religious observance. According to 1 Maccabees 1:41-50 he proclaimed himself the incarnation of the Greek god Zeus and mandated death to anyone who refused to worship him. A major obstacle to his ambition was the fidelity of the Jews to their historic religion and their refusal to allow their homeland to be defiled.
The universal peril led the Samaritans, eager for safety, to repudiate all connection and kinship with the Jews. The request was granted. This was put forth as the final breach between the two groups, being alleged at a much later date in the Christian bible (John 4:9), "For Jews have no dealings with Samaritans."
Several centuries before Christ, the Samaritans had built their own temple on Mt. Gerizim to rival the Temple in Jerusalem. Here, they offered sacrifices according to the Mosaic code. Anderson notes that during the reign of Antiochus IV (175?164 BCE):
Josephus Book 12, Chapter 5 quotes the Samaritans as saying:
In 167 BCE the Seleucid ruler Antiochus Epiphanes defiled the Jewish temple by setting up an altar to Zeus over the holy altar of burnt offerings in the Jewish temple in Jerusalem, which was the center of Jewish religious life. Antiochus also sacrificed a pig on the altar in the Temple in Jerusalem. This event is known as the "abomination of desolation".
The authority of the high priesthood was severely damaged when first Jason and then Meneleus bought their office from Antiochus.
The persecution and death of faithful Jews who refused to worship and kiss Antiochus' image, along with the desecration of the Holy Temple, ultimately led to a revolt led by Judah Maccabee (Judah the Hammer) and his family. Though quite outnumbered, the Israelites, led by the Maccabee family, managed to regain control of their land. This "miracle" restoration of Jewish sovereignty in the face of Greek dominance has been since observed by Jews in the winter "Festival of Lights" holiday known as Chanukah.
Judah's priestly family, the Hasmoneans, introduced a dynasty that ruled during a period of conflict, with tensions arising both from within the family as well as from external enemies.
This Samaritan Temple at Mount Gerizim was destroyed by John Hyrcanus in about 128 BCE, having existed about 200 years. Only a few stone remnants of it exist today.
164 BCE and after
During the Hellenistic period, Samaria (like Judea) was largely divided between a Hellenizing faction based in Samaria (Sebastaea) and a pious faction, led by the High Priest and based largely around Shechem and the rural areas. Samaria was a largely autonomous state nominally dependent on the Seleucid Empire until around 129 BCE, when the Jewish Hasmonean king Yohanan Girhan (John Hyrcanus) destroyed the Samaritan temple and devastated Samaria.Roman period
Samaritans fared badly under the Roman Empire, when Samaria was a part of the Roman-ruled province of Judaea.
Samaritans appear briefly in the Christian gospels, most notable in the parable of the Good Samaritan. In this parable, told to Jews, a Samaritan helps a wounded Jew even though Jews and Samaritans despised each other.
However, this period is also considered as something of a golden age for the Samaritan community, the population thought to number up to a million. The Temple of Gerizim was rebuilt after the Bar Kochba revolt against the Romans, around 135 CE. Much of Samaritan liturgy was set by the high priest Baba Rabba in the 4th century.
The oldest known Samaritan synagogue, the Delos Synagogue, dates from between 150 and 128 BCE, or earlier, and is located on the island of Delos.
There were some Samaritans in the Persian Empire, where they served in the Sassanid army. Many Jews had also lived in Persia for millennia, after various exiles and captivities.
Byzantine times
According to Samaritan sources, Eastern Roman Emperor Zeno (who ruled 474-491 and whom the sources call "Zait the King of Edom") persecuted the Samaritans. The Emperor went to Sichem (Neapolis), gathered the elders and asked them to convert; when they refused, Zeno had many Samaritans killed, and re-built the synagogue to a church. Zeno then took for himself Mount Gerizim, where the Samaritans worshipped God, and built several edifices, among whom a tomb for his recently deceased son, on which he put a cross, so that the Samaritans, worshipping God, would prostrate in front of the tomb. Later, in 484, the Samaritans revolted. The rebels attacked Sichem, burnt five churches built on Samaritan holy places and cut the finger of bishop Terebinthus, who was officiating the ceremony of Pentecost. They elected a Justa (or Justasa/Justasus) as their king and moved to Caesarea, where a noteworthy Samaritan community lived. Here several Christians were killed and the church of St. Sebastian was destroyed. Justa celebrated the victory with games in the circus. According to John Malalas, the dux Palaestinae Asclepiades, whose troops were reinforced by the Caesarea-based Arcadiani of Rheges, defeated Justa, killed him and sent his head to Zeno. According to Procopius, Terebinthus went to Zeno to ask for revenge; the Emperor personally went to Samaria to quell the rebellion.Modern historians believe that the order of the facts preserved by Samaritan sources should be inverted, as the persecution of Zeno was a consequence of the rebellion rather than its cause, and should have happened after 484, around 489. Zeno rebuilt the church of St. Procopius in Neapolis (Sichem) and the Samaritans were banned from Mount Gerizim, on whose top a signalling tower was built to alert in case of civil unrest.
Under a charismatic, messianic figure named Julianus ben Sabar (or ben Sahir), the Samaritans launched a war to create their own independent state in 529. With the help of the Ghassanid Arabs, Emperor Justinian I crushed the revolt; tens of thousands of Samaritans died or were enslaved. The Samaritan faith was virtually outlawed thereafter by the Christian Byzantine Empire; from a population once at least in the hundreds of thousands, the Samaritan community dwindled to near extinction.
After the Muslim Conquests
By the time of the Muslim Conquests, Samaritans were living in an area stretching between Egypt, Syria, and Iran. Like other non-Muslims in the empire, such as Jews, Samaritans were considered to be People of the Book.
Their minority status was protected by the Muslim rulers, and they had the right to practice their religion, but, as dhimmi, adult males had to pay the jizya or "protection tax".
It has been suggested that they were forced to wear red colored turbans as a result of the terms of a document known as the Pact of Umar II, but this stipulation is not explicitly mentioned in the document, the authenticity has been questioned by contemporary scholars, and the tradition cannot be independently verified.
During the Crusades, Samaritans, like the other non-Latin Christian inhabitants of the Kingdom of Jerusalem, were second-class citizens, but they were tolerated and perhaps favoured because they were docile and had been mentioned positively in the Christian New Testament.
Over the centuries of Byzantine, Arab and Turkish rule, the Samaritans suffered many hardships which included forced conversion to Christianity, forced conversion to Islam, harsh religious decrees, massacre and persecution.
While the majority of the Samaritan population in Damascus was killed or converted during the reign of the Ottoman Pasha Mardam Beq in the early 17th century, the remainder of the Samaritan communities from Damascus and the other cities where they had a presence moved to Nablus, due to its close proximity to Mount Gerizim.
The Nablus community endured because most of the surviving diaspora returned, and they have maintained a tiny presence there to this day. In 1624, the last Samaritan High Priest of the line of Eleazar son of Aaron died without issue, but descendants of Aaron's other son, Ithamar, remained and took over the office.
The situation of the Samaritan community improved significantly during the British Mandate of Palestine. At that time, they began to work in the public sector, like many other groups. During the thirties one of the Samaritans, Tawfeek Khadir al-Kahen, was nominated as member of the Nablus Municipality.
Samaritan origins of Palestinian Muslims in Nablus
Much of the local Palestinian population of Nablus is believed to be descended from Samaritans, who converted to Islam. According to the historian Fayyad Altif, large numbers of Samaritans converted due to persecution under various Muslim rulers, and because the monotheistic nature of Islam made it easy for them to accept it. The Samaritans themselves describe the Ottoman period as the worst period in their modern history, as many Samaritan families were forced to convert their religion to Islam during that time. Even today, certain Nabulsi family names such as Muslimani, Yaish, Sayeh, and Shakshir among others, are associated with Samaritan ancestry.For the Samaritans in particular, the passing of the al-Hakem Edict by the Fatimids in 1021, under which all Jews and Christians in the Fatimid ruled southern Levant were ordered to either convert to Islam or leave, along with another notable forced conversion to Islam imposed at the hands of the rebel Ibn Fir?sa,
Genetic studies
Demographic investigation
Demographic investigations of the Samaritan community were carried out in the 1960s. Detailed pedigrees of the last 13 generations show that the Samaritans comprise four lineages:Y-DNA and mtDNA comparisons
Recently several genetic studies on Samaritan population were made using haplogroup comparisons as well as wide-genome genetic studies. Of the 12 Samaritan males used in the analysis, 10 (83%) had Y chromosomes belonging to haplogroup J, which includes three of the four Samaritan families. The Joshua-Marhiv family belongs to haplogroup J1, while the Danfi and Tsedakah families belong to haplogroup J2, and can be further distinguished by M67, the derived allele of which has been found in the Danfi family. The only Samaritan family not found in haplogroup J was the Cohen family (Tradition: Tribe of Levi) which was found in haplogroup E3b1a M78. This article predated the change of the classification of haplogroup E3b1-M78 to E3b1a-M78 and the further subdivision of E3b1a-M78 into 6 subclades based on the research of Cruciani, et al.The 2004 article on the genetic ancestry of the Samaritans by Shen et al. concluded from a sample comparing Samaritans to several Jewish populations, all currently living in Israel ? representing Ethiopian Jews, Ashkenazi Jews, Iraqi Jews, Libyan Jews, Moroccan Jews, and Yemenite Jews, as well as Israeli Druze and Palestinian Arabs ? that the principal components analysis suggested a common ancestry of Samaritan and Jewish patrilineages. Most of the former may be traced back to a common ancestor in what is today identified as the paternally inherited Israelite high priesthood (Cohanim) with a common ancestor projected to the time of the Assyrian conquest of the kingdom of Israel.
Archaeologists Aharoni, et al., estimated that this "exile of peoples to and from Israel under the Assyrians" took place during ca. 734 BCE to 712 BCE. The authors speculated that when the Assyrians conquered the northern kingdom of Israel, resulting in the exile of many of the Israelites, a subgroup of the Israelites that remained in the Land of Israel "married Assyrian and female exiles relocated from other conquered lands, which was a typical Assyrian policy to obliterate national identities." The study goes on to say that "Such a scenario could explain why Samaritan Y chromosome lineages cluster tightly with Jewish Y lineages, while their mitochondrial lineages are closest to Iraqi Jewish and Palestinian mtDNA sequences." Non-Jewish Iraqis were not sampled in this study; however, mitochondrial lineages of Jewish communities tend to correlate with their non-Jewish host populations, unlike paternal lineages which almost always correspond to Israelite lineages.
Genetic differences between the Samaritans and neighboring Jewish and non-Jewish populations are corroborated in that study of 7,280 bp of non-recombining Y-chromosome and 5,622 bp of coding and hypervariable segment (HVS-I) mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) sequences. Comparative sequence analysis was carried out on 12 Samaritan Y-chromosome and mtDNA samples from 9 male and 7 female Samaritans separated by at least two generations. The four Samaritan families clustered to four distinct Y-chromosome haplogroups according to their patrilineal identity. Of the 16 Samaritan mtDNA samples, 14 carry either of two mitochondrial haplotypes that are rare or absent among other worldwide ethnic groups.
Modern times
As of January 1, 2012, there were 751 Samaritans, half of whom reside in their modern homes at Kiryat Luza on Mount Gerizim, which is sacred to them, and the rest in the city of Holon, just outside Tel Aviv. There are also four Samaritan families residing in Binyamina-Giv'at Ada, Matan and Ashdod.
After the end of the British Mandate of Palestine and the subsequent establishment of the State of Israel, some of the Samaritans who were living in Jaffa emigrated to the West Bank and lived in Nablus. But by the late fifties, around 100 Samaritans left the West Bank for Israel under an agreement with the Jordanian authorities.
Until the 1980s, most of the Samaritans resided in the Samarian town of Nablus below Mount Gerizim. They relocated to the mountain itself near the Israeli settlement neighborhood of Har Brakha as a result of violence during the First Intifada (1987?1990). Consequently, all that is left of the Samaritan community in Nablus/Shechem itself is an abandoned synagogue. The Israeli army maintains a presence in the area.
Relations of Samaritans with Jewish Israelis and Muslim and Christian Palestinians in neighboring areas have been mixed. In 1954, Israeli President Yitzhak Ben-Zvi fostered a Samaritan enclave in Holon, Israel. Samaritans living in both Israel and in the West Bank enjoy Israeli citizenship. Samaritans in the Palestinian Authority-ruled territories are a minority in the midst of a Muslim majority, although the Samaritans are a recognized minority along with Christians and Jews. In Israel the Samaritans operate without the status of a recognised religion. They had a reserved seat in the Palestinian Legislative Council in the election of 1996, but they no longer have one. Palestinian Samaritans have been granted passports by both Israel and the Palestinian Authority.
Samaritan communities tend to be more politically aligned with Israel, regardless of whether they live in Jewish-majority or Arab-majority areas.? However, Al-Kahen Wasef al-Samery, a Samaritan leader, declared in 1960 that Israel is an enemy for them as it is an enemy for the Arabs.? The Samaritans in Nablus often try to show the differences between them and the Jews, more so than those who live in Holon.? Samaritans have stated that the military authorities do not treat them as a minority.? On the contrary, they felt that they were treated like West Bank Arabs.? Prior to 1948, the Samaritans were divided politically into two factions.? The first was led by Sadaqa al-Kahen, who supported the Palestinian Arab leader Mohammad Amin al-Husayni, while the second faction was led by Wasef al-kahen, who supported another Palestinian Arab leader, Ragheb Nashashibi.
As a small community physically divided between neighbors in a hostile region, Samaritans have been hesitant overtly to take sides in the Arab-Israel conflict, fearing that doing so could lead to negative repercussions. While the Samaritan communities in both the West Bank's Nablus and Israeli Holon have assimilated to the surrounding culture, Hebrew has become the primary domestic language for Samaritans. Samaritans who are Israeli citizens are drafted into the military, along with the Jewish citizens of Israel.
One of the biggest problems facing the community today is the issue of continuity.? With such a small population, divided into only four families (Cohen, Tsedakah, Danfi and Marhib) (a fifth family died out in the second-last centuryWhich century? See this discussion. and a general refusal to accept converts, there has been a history of genetic disease within the group due to the small gene pool.? To counter this, the Samaritan community has recently agreed that men from the community may marry non-Samaritan (primarily, Israeli Jewish) women, provided that the women agree to follow Samaritan religious practices.? There is a six-month trial period prior to officially joining the Samaritan community to see whether this is a commitment that the woman would like to take.? This often poses a problem for the women, who are typically less than eager to adopt the strict interpretation of Biblical (Levitical) laws regarding menstruation, by which they must live in a separate dwelling during their periods and after childbirth.? There have been a few instances of intermarriage.? In addition, all marriages within the Samaritan community are first approved by a geneticist at Tel HaShomer Hospital, in order to prevent the spread of genetic disease.
The head of the community is the Samaritan High Priest, who is selected by age from the priestly family, and resides on Mount Gerizim. The most recent high priest was Elazar ben Tsedaka ben Yitzhaq, who died on 4 February 2010. He will be replaced by his cousin Aharon Ben-Av Chisda.
Samaritanism
The Samaritan religion is based on some of the same books used as the basis of mainstream Judaism, but differs from the latter. Samaritan scriptures include the Samaritan version of the Torah, the Memar Markah, the Samaritan liturgy, and Samaritan law codes and biblical commentaries. Samaritans appear to have texts of the Torah as old as the Masoretic Text and the Septuagint; scholars have various theories concerning the actual relationships between these three texts.
Religious beliefs
The Samaritans retained the Ancient Hebrew script, the high priesthood, animal sacrifices, the eating of lambs at Passover, and the celebration of Aviv in spring as the New Year. Yom Teruah (the biblical name for Rosh Hashanah), at the beginning of Tishrei, is not considered a new year as it is in Judaism. Their main Torah text differs from the Masoretic Text, as well. Some differences are doctrinal: for example, their Torah explicitly states that Mount Gerizim is "the place that God has chosen" for the Temple, as opposed to the Jewish Torah that refers to "the place that God will choose". Other differences are minor and seem more or less accidental.
Relationship to mainstream Judaism
Samaritans refer to themselves as Bene Yisrael ("Children of Israel") which is a term used by all Jewish denominations as a name for the Jewish people as a whole. They however do not refer to themselves as Yehudim (Judeans), the standard Hebrew name for Jews, considering the latter to denote only mainstream Jews.
The Talmudic attitude expressed in tractate Kutim is that they are to be treated as Jews in matters where their practice coincides with the mainstream but are treated as non-Jews where their practice differs. Since the 19th century, mainstream Judaism has regarded the Samaritans as a Jewish sect and the term Samaritan Jews has been used for them.
Religious texts
Samaritan law is not the same as halakha (Rabbinical Jewish law). The Samaritans have several groups of religious texts, which correspond to Jewish halakhah. A few examples of such texts are:Christian sources: New Testament
The Christian Gospels mention Samaritans on seven occasions: A Samaritan village rejects a request from Jesus for hospitality because the villagers did not want to facilitate a pilgrimage to Jerusalem, a practice which they saw as a violation of the Law of Moses.? ? ?. The Parable of the Good Samaritan.? . Jesus healed ten lepers, of whom only one returned to praise God, and he was a Samaritan.? Jesus asks a Samaritan woman of Sychar for water from Jacob's Well.? Thereafter many of the Samaritans from her town become followers of Jesus.This woman considered herself and her people to be Israelites, descendants of Jacob. ? Jesus is accused of being a Samaritan and being demon-possessed. He denies having a demon, but makes no comment on the Samaritan accusation. ? When instructing his disciples as to how they should spread the word, Jesus tells them not to visit any Gentile or Samaritan city, but instead go to the "lost sheep of Israel".?Media
The Samaritan News, a monthly magazine started in 1969, is written in Samaritan, Hebrew, Arabic, and English and deals with current and historical issues with which the Samaritan community is concerned. The Samaritan Update is a bi-monthly e-newsletter for Samaritan Studies.See also
References
Further reading
External links
Samaritan view:Jewish view:
Independent views:
Books and other information:
Books and other information (continued):
Photographic links:
Category:Abrahamic religions Category:Ancient Levant Category:Ancient peoples Category:Ethnic groups in the Middle East Category:Indigenous peoples of Western Asia Category:Monotheistic religions Category:Semitic peoples Category:Ten Lost Tribes
ar:??????? an:Samaritans bjn:Urang Samaria bg:???????? br:Samaritaned ca:Samaritans cs:Samarit?ni cy:Samariaid da:Samaritaner de:Samaritaner es:Samaritanos eo:Samarianoj fa:???????? fo:Sam?riab?gvar fr:Samaritains gl:Samaritanos ko:????? hr:Samaritanci id:Orang Samaria it:Samaritani he:???????? lv:Samarie?i lt:Samarie?iai hu:Szamarit?nusok ml:???????? ms:Orang Samaria nl:Samaritanen ja:????? no:Samaritanere nn:Samaritanarar pms:Samaritan pl:Samarytanie pt:Samaritanos ro:Samariteni ru:?????????? simple:Samaritan sl:Samarijan sh:Samaritanci fi:Samarialaiset sv:Samaritaner tl:Samaritano tr:Samiriler zh:?????Source: http://article.wn.com/view/2013/01/10/Adebayor_in_Diarra_out_of_Africa_Cup/
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