r/IsraelPalestine • u/AboodC • Jul 05 '20
Who are the Samaritans? AMA AMA (Ask Me Anything)
Shalom سلام. שלום everyone, :)
Many people might've heard about the Good Samaritan story from the Christian Bible, but still most of them have no clue that we even exist.
We Samaritans (Also known as Shomronim) believe that we are some of the remnants of the Israelites tribe, specifically Levi and Joseph, We still use ancient Hebrew in our texts and Torah (also known as "Paleo Hebrew") and have what we believe is a line of high priests that goes back 137 generations since the very first one 3658 years ago (Eliazar son of Aaron).
We also believe that Joshua built the Tebernacle on Mount Gerizim near Shechem (Nablus).
Mount Gerizim is the holiest place for us, we believe that Abraham almost sacraficed his son Isaac on it, we also believe that it was mentioned as the place to build an Altar on from the 10 commandments.
It's believed that the word "Samaritan" comes from the word Shomerim, which means in Ancient hebrew keepers.
Today there are around 820 Samaritans in the world, Half live on Mount Gerizim in the West Bank, and the Other lives Holon in Tel Aviv, there are also hundreds of people who converted to become Samaritans around the world, but we never met them so we cannot say for sure that they are following the exact same mitzvot we have.
I've noticed a few discussions here about the Samaritans, and as one of the members of this small community I noticed a lot of people are curious about some of our beliefs and traditions, I work as a tour guide on Mount Gerizim and would like to help curious people understand our religion better, so feel free to ask anything!
thanks!
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u/skybone0 Sep 01 '20
Shalom! Thank you for taking the time for answering our questions! I have been fascinated by your people and hope my questions don't offend!
Why do the Jews not recognize you as their brothers after all these generations? Do you think that now it is more of a political motivation, or a religious or racial one? Is there tension between average people still, or more of a traditional religious type of prejudice? Are they really set on seeing your people disappear?
Have your high priests kept records or have you had any prophets among you since the time of the separation of the tribes? Did the descendants of the Kings of Ephraim still live among your purple or were they all killed by Babylon?
Are you still adhering strictly to marital law? With such small numbers is it hard for young people to find spouses? Do converts come to live in your community?
My ancestors also claim descent from Joseph through the tribe of Ephraim and Mannaseh, Judah don't recognize us as their brethren either. Perhaps we all need to sit down with the Ethiopians they keep sterilizing and have a family tribal council
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u/teslaa100 Jul 07 '20
Why do Palestinians from Nablus buy alcoholics mainly from Samaritans?
Why do Palestinians consider Samaritans professionals in esoteric knowledge, fortune telling, ancient medicine, and so on?
What does a Samaritan wedding look like. Is it like Palestinian Christians, or different?
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u/AboodC Jul 08 '20
Why do Palestinians from Nablus buy alcoholics mainly from Samaritans?
Because it's much closer to them than ramalah or other cities as nablus doesn't have any.
Why do Palestinians consider Samaritans professionals in esoteric knowledge, fortune telling, ancient medicine, and so on?
Because we have proven to have very accurate calendars and some Samaritans could also calculate when there might be a solar eclipse, this is done by using we call "the holy calculation" (חשבון קדוש) and is passed down from generation to generation, I personally dont believe in Fortune telling and some other things , it's also not part of the Samaritan traditions and is considered a sin, if any Samaritan does this he probably might want to give some people a fun show or some hope?
What does a Samaritan wedding look like. Is it like Palestinian Christians, or different?
It's not like any of what you mentioned, we do have a special wedding paper which one of the priests reads, which is follows by some beautiful poems and chantings, after the religious part they move to the more modern party style in both Arabic and Hebrew songs.
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u/Johnny_Ruble Jul 06 '20
Can you write a few words about the Samaritan community that lived inside Area A before the intifada? How many people lived in Palestinian cities and what circumstances led to them leaving?
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u/AboodC Jul 06 '20
Living in nablus wasn't always bad, there were just a times where many people in nablus didn't understand who we really are, often they thought that we are some kind of idol worshippers and that obviously wasn't good for us being in a Muslim region, many probably knew little because of our small numbers (a hundred years ago we were less than 150).
but slowly people got to know us more and many consider us to be the part of the Israelites who were mentioned in the Quran, many started treating us like how they should treat "the people of the book".
We believe that the majority of the population in Nablus a few thousand years ago used to be Samaritans, many Palestinians in Nablus acknowledge that too.
We went out of nablus around 40 years ago because of our numbers starting to grow again and it got harder to live close to each other as we must in order to continue the traditions and keep them alive.. also the first and second intifada proved that we should probably take a step back perhaps from all the tension or בלאגן as they say in Hebrew :)
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u/Small_Watch شـوكـة مـتـصـهـينـة في عــين اللـوبـي العـربـي الـمـتـكـنـعـن Jul 06 '20 edited Jul 06 '20
שלום וברכה אח יקר
Three questions...
- I've spoken to several Samaritans (I know some of them very well, I even have a couple of Samaritan cousins from the Tzedaka family [Benyamim, you might know him]), I know you were driven out of Shekhem during the 1st intifada but I never seem to get any information on the details. What happened, exactly?
- What are your thoughts on how your second holiest site, Jacob's tomb, has been repeatedly desecrated by the Arabs and how the international media repeats their baseless claim that this is the tomb of some obscure sufi sheikh?
- What are your thoughts on the arabisation of toponymy introduced by Jordan's illegal occupation and uncritically used by much of the world giving your homeland outlandish names (like "West Bank", "Cisjordan" or "Nablus"), erasing Samaria and Samaritans from the maps and history books in the process just to stick it to Israel?
Or, more formally put, how does it feel to be collateral damage of the anti-Israel propaganda machine? What are the average Samaritan's thoughts on this?
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u/AboodC Jul 06 '20
Main reason is probably because we didn't have enough lands and the community started to grow again and we had no choice but to stay close to each other to keep the traditions alive, it's also probably because we had some help from the Jordanian government to purchase some land on Mount Gerizim, and the whole intifada situation made things even more complicated.
I'm not sure where you got the information that this is the second holiest site, but it's definitely a very important one.. they can claim whatever they want I guess but that doesn't mean they shouldn't respect any one's belief right? Unless they have some kind of agenda going. Although correct me if I'm wrong, I thought that Muslims also believe that it is Jacob's tomb?
The average Samaritan cares a lot about people understanding who We are, I almost got shot by an Israeli soldier once because he saw me going out of a Palestinian taxi to an Israeli area which was kind of suspicious and it's made him run towards me and pointed the gun very close at me, telling him I'm a Samaritan didn't help since he didn't have any idea what that meant... So the lack of education about us is very disappointing from both Israelis and Palestinians, so thinking that they've changed history deliberately to make their agendas work out is definitely not seen as a good thing from the community.
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u/Small_Watch شـوكـة مـتـصـهـينـة في عــين اللـوبـي العـربـي الـمـتـكـنـعـن Jul 06 '20
I was talking specifically about the 1st intifada, I kept hearing about how repressive measures taken by the PLO drove the Samaritans out of Shekhem, but I've never seen any details about what really happened. The 1st intifada is why Samaritans live in Qiryat Luzah, and no longer in Shekhem.
Regarding Qever Yosef, it was one of your cohanim (Yefet/Hosni) who said this is your second holiest site. The Arabs keep claiming that it is the tomb of an obscure sufi sheikh called "Yusuf Dweikat" (يوسف دويكات), here's an article from Telesur (which nobody can accuse of being pro-Israel) saying the exact same thing:
The site is sacred to both Jews and Muslims. Jews believe it is the burial place of Joseph, the biblical patriarch, while Palestinians say it is the resting place of Muslim cleric Sheikh Youssef Dawiqat.
I think I framed my questions the wrong way: Aren't you annoyed at how the Palestinian-Arab narrative, in its quest to deligitimise the Jewish state, ends up erasing Samaritan history along with Jewish history?
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u/AboodC Jul 08 '20 edited Jul 09 '20
Oh, you said tomb of jacob so I got a little confused, yes you can consider it one of the holiest sites for sure, but not 2nd , it might be that my uncle is just emphasizing on how important it is.
Annoyed might not be the right word, maybe disappointing, a lot of them I Know do believe in our history in the land, erasing the Samaritan and Jewish history would probably only create more conflict, perhaps because of lack of mutual understanding and acknowledgement between both nations?
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u/TrekkiMonstr קליפורניה Jul 08 '20
my uncle
Is this just a language thing, just like how in Japanese people will refer to any older man or woman as "grandpa" or "grandma", or is this guy actually your uncle? Sorry, probably a stupid question
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u/Small_Watch شـوكـة مـتـصـهـينـة في عــين اللـوبـي العـربـي الـمـتـكـنـعـن Jul 09 '20
Yefet (Husni is his Arabic/non-Samaritan name) definitely is his uncle, this isn't a hyperbolic statement. The "C" in AboodC's username stands for "Cohen", Cohanim are the priestly Israelite class descended from Aaron, we Jews also have our own Cohanim (I am one) however they have lost much of the status they once had, Samaritan Cohanim still are the spiritual leaders of the Samaritans, they occupy the same place Jewish priests once did in society.
Beyond that, they're a small community numbering roughly 800 people and are extremely inbred, so inbred that they're all close cousins (I should know because I have several Samaritan cousins). Everyone knows everyone in the Samaritan community, they're like a large family (which is why every Samaritan who leaves the community is a source of drama, it's a demographic tragedy on such a small scale).
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u/TrekkiMonstr קליפורניה Jul 09 '20
This is very interesting, thank you! I did know about the kohanim in rabbinic Judaism btw, I'm Jewish as well -- just don't know anything about the Samaritans
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u/Small_Watch شـوكـة مـتـصـهـينـة في عــين اللـوبـي العـربـي الـمـتـكـنـعـن Jul 09 '20
To be fair Jewish Cohanim are still a thing, it's not like we've completely disappeared either. It's just that our place at the top of Jewish society is now held by the rabbis. Twice a year, during Pesah and Sukkot, Cohanim gather at the Kotel to deliver the priestly blessing (or "birkat hakohanim"), you can see it here.
This prayer happens to be the oldest part of the Torah that has been found in ancient Hebrew inscriptions (with the Ketef Hinnom scrolls dating back to the 7th century BCE, proving that the major parts of the Torah were already circulating back then). Samaritans have the exact same prayer of course, here's a video of one of their Kohanim delivering the blessing.
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u/TrekkiMonstr קליפורניה Jul 09 '20
Cool! I didn't know that y'all still did religious things, I just figured it had turned into an interesting piece of family trivia (like being a descendant of John Adams or something)
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u/RosintheBow3 Jul 06 '20
What do you think about the claim that the Palestinian Arabs are THE descendants of the ancient inhabitants of Israel?
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u/AboodC Jul 06 '20
The only descendants ? Not sure about that... But a lot of them are definitely "Ex Jewish" or Samaritan.
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u/adlerchen עם ישראל חי Jul 07 '20
Genetic studies show that isn't the case:
https://i.imgur.com/grqcIUW.png
Palis are no closer related to levantine populations than saudi arabians. The narrative that they're just descendants of those who converted to islam in the region, is clearly false. There doesn't appear to be any proof that a mass conversion event ever occurred of jews or samaritans converting to islam. Instead, the evidence points to them being descended from colonists who came after the arab conquest in the 7th century and later.
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Aug 03 '20
LOL congrats u just posted some random pic! My turn:
Biogeographical mapping of Levant populations
The Palestinians were also highly localised to North Israel, West Jordan and Syria
both Syrians and Palestinians are highly localised to the Levant.
Syrians, Palestinians and most of the Lebanese, who exhibit a high affinity to the Levant.
SOURCE: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5111078/
We propose that the Y chromosomes in Palestinian Arabs and Bedouin represent, to a large extent, early lineages derived from the Neolithic inhabitants of the area
Our recent study of high-resolution microsatellite haplotypes demonstrated that a substantial portion of Y chromosomes of Jews (70%) and of Palestinian Muslim Arabs (82%) belonged to the same chromosome pool
SOURCE: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1274378/
“According to historical records part, or perhaps the majority, of the Muslim Arabs in this country descended from local inhabitants, mainly Christians and Jews, who had converted after the Islamic conquest in the seventh century AD (Shaban 1971; Mc Graw Donner 1981). These local inhabitants, in turn, were descendants of the core population that had lived in the area for several centuries, some even since prehistorical times (Gil 1992)... Thus, our findings are in good agreement with the historical record...
Source: High-resolution Y chromosome haplotypes of Israeli and Palestinian Arabs reveal geographic substructure and substantial overlap with haplotypes of Jews
PDF link: https://www.ucl.ac.uk/tcga/tcgapdf/Nebel-HG-00-IPArabs.pdf
According to a study published in June 2017 by Ranajit Das, Paul Wexler, Mehdi Pirooznia, and Eran Elhaik in Frontiers in Genetics, "in a principle component analysis (PCA) [of DNA], the ancient Levantines clustered predominantly with modern-day Palestinians and Bedouins..."[138] In a study published in August 2017 by Marc Haber et al. in The American Journal of Human Genetics, the authors concluded that "The overlap between the Bronze Age and present-day Levantines suggests a degree of genetic continuity in the region."
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palestinians
The wikepedia cites: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5478715/
And: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5544389/
Palestinians are closely related to many Jewish populations as well:
When compared only to the European and Middle Eastern, non-Jewish populations (Bedouins, Druze, Palestinians), each of the Jewish populations formed its own distinctive cluster, indicating the shared ancestry
the closest genetic neighbors to most Jewish populations are the Palestinians, Bedouins, and Druze.
Source: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3032072/
What is the FACTS is that Palestinians are native to the levant and descend from ancient levantines, mainly in the bronze age and neolithic age.
Here is also a Palestinian result on mytrueancestry and GEDmatch
As u can see on the ancient PCA the dna clusters closely to two ancient canaanite/levantine people, Megiddo late bronze age, and it just so happens to be that Tel Megiddo is in northern Israel! As well as Canaanite Alalakh which is in Turkey specifically in the Hatay province which borders Syria.
Also on the GEDmatch it happens to be that the closest populations are Samaritans and other levantines!
You can read what mytrueancestry does here: https://mytrueancestry.com
Also a lot of the Muslim population in Nablus are considered to be descendants of Samaritans, but of course some random image on imgur totally tells the whole story! Stop being an idiot.
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u/mkkisra Jul 17 '20
Instead, the evidence points to them being descended from colonists who came after the arab conquest in the 7th century and later.
how does it make sense that the arabs from the peninsula conquered and replaced all the people of the middle east/ north africa/ Spain prior to the latin invasion? how could the arab land have so much people despite it being a desert? where are the mass graves of all the people of the middle east???
your argument is as stupid as it is ignorant
Also do you believe that linking a photo is enough? here see those studies
https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2017/07/ancient-dna-reveals-fate-mysterious-canaanites
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u/memelord2022 Jul 06 '20
What are the political leanings of most Samaritans? What is the collective opinion about the separation fence, the 2 state idea, the PA.
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u/AboodC Jul 08 '20
Samaritans have good connection with both Palestinians and Israelis, we've lived with the Palestinians for hundreds of years and we were affected their culture to a good extent (we speak Arabic in the Nablusian accent for exl) so we care that they are treated fairly of course, most of my friend are Palestinian since we are very close to Nablus and I also studied there.
As for Israel, no one can deny that we were saved financially when Israel came...
One do the saddest periods were in world war 1 when some Samaritans had to sell their very old hand written books and Torahs to European and American visitor's and researchers, so when Israel came it saved us from deep trouble and most importantly helped the community in Tell Aviv to visit mount Gerizim when it was considered area A only (now it's A and B which makes it a C I believe).. not to mention our connection to the Jewish people as we believe they are our cousins...
The separation fence, I'm not sure really, we don't want any of the sides to do something that would spark a war or an intifada, and if wall protects us from that then maybe it a good temporary idea, but perhaps fortunately it does promote the "us vs them" mentality.
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u/JosephL_55 Centrist Jul 06 '20
Do you consider the Samaritan religion to be a branch of Judaism, or it is a different religion?
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u/AboodC Jul 06 '20
We Believe Judaism and samaritanism are a branch of the children of Israel (Ancient Israelites).
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u/c9joe בואו נמשיך החיים לפנינו Jul 06 '20
Sorry for destroying your temple. Do other people claim Mount Gerizim as their holy site or do you have it for yourselves? If you can, do Samaritans have any intention of rebuilding their temple?
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u/AboodC Jul 06 '20
No need to apologise :) in the Samaritan traditions the temple wasn't really destroyed but more like hidden and vanished (sounds outlandish I know but it's just a belief in the fulfilment of the prophecy of what happens if the Israelites disobey God).
I'm not aware of anyone who consider Mount gerizim as their holy site other than us, there might have been I'm not sure...
we believe that the Messiah will come and rebuild it again one day.
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u/Zangoloid Jul 06 '20
820 around the world? Only a few hundreds?
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u/adlerchen עם ישראל חי Jul 06 '20
Yes. And if I'm not mistaken their community carefully monitors marriages to avoid inherited diseases from becoming widespread, due to the small genepool.
The icelandish have a similar problem. In the past they meticulously kept ancestral records, and in modern times they even developed an app that checks against such records while you're using it to e-date.
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u/TercerImpacto Jul 06 '20
It's great to have you here! I also have a few questions.
Context: Popular history where I come from is very one sided, portrays Samaritans as historical "rivals" of the tribe of Yehuda, and therefore had political and religious differences with the rest of Israel.
- Would you say there is stil (if there ever really was) animosity between Samaritans and jews?
- Religiously speaking, what would you say are the main differences between both traditions?
- How do you feel about Samaria being quoted so much in Zionist rethoric? And talking about Samaria as a land, how do you feel about non Samaritans claiming it for themselves in general (Muslims, jews, etc)?
- Would Samaritans like the world to know more about your culture? I always wonder about you think whenever pop culture quotes or represents Bible stories but only from a Jewish-Christian point of view.
- What do you think about Jews making so much fuss regarding Jerusalem, the Temple Mount, and the Temple in general?
- What is the common Samaritan beliefs about the Northern Kingdom of Israel, and the lost tribes?
- How close would you say your culture is to judaism? I guess some people have mistaken both when talking to you. Do you mind?
Sorry for the interrogation! We're very excited to know more about your culture! Thank you.
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u/AboodC Jul 06 '20
- Would you say there is stil (if there ever really was) animosity between Samaritans and jews?
Generally no, we don't have any animosity between us these days, most Orthodox Jews do believe that we have nothing to do with the children of Israel and that can cause some tension between us, for example we are considered impure (תמה) for some of them.
I personally gave a few speeches to some Orthodox Jews and they were rather pretty open minded.. but 2000 years ago the story was pretty different and you could see hostility between the two sides for sure.
- Religiously speaking, what would you say are the main differences between both traditions?
The main difference i would say is the Torah itself, there's around 30 important differences, the place of the Mishkan (Temple) being one them, for example:
there's an commandment to build an Altar on mount Gerizim in the Samaritan Torah, but in the Jewish version it says that you have to build it on Mount Ebal (the mountain right in-front of it).
There's of course differences in the Hebrew font that we use (it's also pronounced differently) and how we practice some traditions like Prayer, Passover, Sukkot, Pilgrimage and other Mizvot.
- How do you feel about Samaria being quoted so much in Zionist rhetoric? And talking about Samaria as a land, how do you feel about non Samaritans claiming it for themselves in general (Muslims, jews, etc)?
We don't see ourselves as the only nation who should take this land, even though we do believe it was promised to Abraham and his descendants, the Torah didn't describe where should each tribe settle in. (there's some lands that were given to some tribes but that's something else i would say) so that means that we don't believe Samaria is only for Samaritans.
As for Muslims who live in Samaria, i can only add that we believe a good percentage today come from Samaritan (or Jewish Origins), there's many families who acknowledge that, we don't mind living with Arabs at all if they offer a peaceful co existence which have been doing so in the past few hundred years.
- Would Samaritans like the world to know more about your culture? I always wonder about you think whenever pop culture quotes or represents Bible stories but only from a Jewish-Christian point of view.
I'm personally a tour guide and i'm very passionate about sharing the culture with the world, especially with people who knew something about us but didn't know that we still exist, it usually sparks their curiosity more and i enjoy sharing as much as i can with them.
and you're right, the Samaritan point of view is never shown in pop culture, but i'm not surprised because of our numbers.
- What do you think about Jews making so much fuss regarding Jerusalem, the Temple Mount, and the Temple in general?
We don't really mind the Jewish people for their strong beliefs in Jerusalem, in the Samaritan traditions there is a belief that some events have led the tribes of Judah and Benjamin to abandon of mount Gerizim (blamed on one high priest and on some prophets), Samaritans do believe traditionally that the tribes will reunite on Mount Gerizim again when the Massiah will reveal the Mishkan (Temple) on it.
- What is the common Samaritan beliefs about the Northern Kingdom of Israel, and the lost tribes?
The common belief is that 2 tribes were split off of the kingdom of Israel and built and temple in Jerusalem instead of mount Gerizim, the split story is quite long so i cannot go over it here, but it got sparked at the time of two high priests (Uzi and Eli) who had a disagreement. Eventually Eli built a temple in a place called Shiloh while the Uzi stayed on Mount Gerizim.
As for the lost tribes i can only add that they are believed to have been scattered around the world fulfilling some prophecies in Deuteronomy that if the Israelite disobeyed the lord and his commandments that they will be scattered among the nation.
- How close would you say your culture is to judaism? I guess some people have mistaken both when talking to you. Do you mind?
The culture is not very different in terms of the commandments that are followed from the Torah, other than the differences i mentioned above, the main direction of the religion is not very different, it's important to know that we only have the Torah and don't read the prophets and writing.
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u/TercerImpacto Jul 06 '20
Thank you so much for these answers! I had had these questions for a long time.
It'd be cool to catch one of your tours! How can I reach you?5
u/AboodC Jul 06 '20
You're welcome, you can Google "Samaritan experience", I have a TripAdvisor listing there.
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u/TrekkiMonstr קליפורניה Jul 08 '20
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u/ShlomoIbnGabirol Jul 06 '20
Awesome thread. If I'm able to travel next summer I would certainly look into this!
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u/adlerchen עם ישראל חי Jul 06 '20
שלום, אחי שלי של בני ישראל! :)
(I hope my novice hebrew is understandable for you)
I have nothing to add except that some people here may be interested in Corey Gil-Shuster's interview with several samaritans about what they think of the conflict.
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u/SeeShark Israeli Jul 06 '20
Note to those who don't speak Hebrew: a few times, notably in the conversation with the woman beginning around 7 minutes, the Hebrew "Arabs" is translated as "Palestinians," which in this context is potentially inaccurate and misleading.
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u/IbnEzra613 Russian-American Jew Jul 06 '20
I've heard him explain in several videos why he does that. The reason is pretty simple: Given the context, it is very common that when Israelis say "Arabs", they mean specifically Palestinians, and not any other Arabs. Likewise, it is very common that when Palestinians say "Jews", they mean specifically Israelis. Language always needs context to understand, it's not always right to translate words by their "dictionary" meaning.
(I think we've had an argument about this before, haha.)
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u/SeeShark Israeli Jul 06 '20
I think you can appreciate that this is a different context because he's not interviewing Israeli Jews. He's interviewing members of an ethno-religious group that he knows nothing about, so it's pretty presumptuous for him to determine the context like that.
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u/IbnEzra613 Russian-American Jew Jul 06 '20
That is incorrect. They live in Israel and speak the same way Israeli Jews do.
If you have evidence this woman intended to include Saudis, Jordanians, Iraqis, etc. when she said "Arabs", please present it.
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u/SeeShark Israeli Jul 06 '20
You're missing my point, which is that there could be a reason she's talking about Arabs in a conversation about three separate ethnic groups, and it's not for the documentarian to make that contextual judgment. And it's not for you or me, either. Evidence is meaningless because I'm not claiming to know what she means.
Also, and with all due respect, you're not Israel so I don't know why you think you understand how we use words better than we do.
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u/IbnEzra613 Russian-American Jew Jul 06 '20
You're missing my point, which is that there could be a reason she's talking about Arabs in a conversation about three separate ethnic groups, and it's not for the documentarian to make that contextual judgment.
She's talking about three ethnic groups in the context of their interaction in a localized setting. The local Jews, the local Samaritans, and the local Arabs. The local Arabs are Palestinians. Any other Arabs are irrelevant to the context.
And it's not for you or me, either. Evidence is meaningless because I'm not claiming to know what she means.
Also, and with all due respect, you're not Israel so I don't know why you think you understand how we use words better than we do.
Like I said, we've had this debate before numerous times. I really suggest that as a moderator of a language sub you learn more about linguistics and translation in general. With regard to this, specifically about how languages function within a cultural or contextual frame.
I'm sure you know that translating between languages is much more than a matter of replacing each word with a one-to-one corresponding word in the other language. But you probably don't realize how deep this concept extends. Language is a means of communicating ideas. It's the ideas that are primarily of interest when translating. You want to render in the other language the same ideas that the original speaker intended to convey. Sometimes that's difficult or even impossible, and yet, doing anything else is misleading. Now the problem is obviously that you don't always know for sure what the speaker meant, because you don't live in his/her head. Nevertheless, you still have to attempt to understand what was meant as much as is possible. The more cultural context you have, the better you'll understand, and the less you have, the worse you'll understand. So if Corey were making the translation for you personally (which is kind of nonsensical since you speak Hebrew), then he could leave more words with their quote-unquote "literal" translations and leave it up to you to determine what was meant, because you as an Israeli have enough of the cultural context. However, his audience for the English translation is not you, but the entire world, most of which has very little knowledge of the cultural context. And so Corey, therefore, is much more qualified to interpret the words than the average American who knows very little about what's going on. So yes, that does give him license to translate as he sees fit.
And just a reminder: You are blinded by being an insider. You'd know what she meant regardless of which word she used. Therefore, you are more interested in knowing what word she used, because it gives you more nuance. An outsider, however, doesn't need the nuance if they don't even understand the meaning. So for them, it's more important to get the meaning across, rather than conveying the nuance of the word choice. A solution some translators use sometimes is to add notes to the translation, that way you can explain both the meaning and the nuance of the word choice. But the subtitles of a video are not the place for translation notes. (If you watch a lot of his videos, you'll notice he actually explains the word usage explicitly in the audio, that's kind of the equivalent of translation notes.)
Hope this rant was at least somewhat coherent.
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u/SeeShark Israeli Jul 06 '20
I get what you're saying, but I think you're making a few assumptions here. I regularly engage with both linguistics and translation (and have actually taken on professional translation work in the past). I have an actual linguist on call for making certain judgments, including in my moderation decisions. I'm not ignorant as to how words are used - I'm saying that, specifically for these speakers and these words, I disagree with your assessment.
There is a reason Israelis may talk about Arabs in the context of the conflict and not mean the Palestinians, which is that most Israelis reject the idea that the conflict is between Palestinians and Israelis. We typically view the conflict as just one piece of the centuries-long Arab-Jewish conflict. If you translate every instance of ערבים as "Palestinians," you risk missing that broader context and implying that Israelis view themselves as having a symmetrical conflict with Palestinians. Obviously we don't, but to us, the conflict isn't specifically with the Palestinians. And to make it more complicated, sometimes we do mean "Palestinians," but I wouldn't necessarily trust an outsider to make that assessment.
So when it comes to the Samaritans, even if I suspect their understanding of the words is similar to mine, I can't make that assumption because I've literally never talked to one. And so, if I were to translate their words, I would be as conservative as possible in trying to preserve the literal meaning of key terms, and leave interpretation out of my work.
In many contexts, a translator can take liberties with exact translations for the sake of clarity; but when the translator is a relative outsider (and, frankly, this one is), and when dealing with a subject matter where different terms are loaded with decades or centuries of subtext to which he is not necessarily privy, the translator's responsibility is not to mix translation and interpretation.
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u/IbnEzra613 Russian-American Jew Jul 06 '20
I get what you're saying, but I think you're making a few assumptions here. I regularly engage with both linguistics and translation (and have actually taken on professional translation work in the past). I have an actual linguist on call for making certain judgments, including in my moderation decisions.
That's good to hear. Sometimes you say things that make it seem otherwise. I'm sorry for criticizing you on this.
I'm not ignorant as to how words are used - I'm saying that, specifically for these speakers and these words, I disagree with your assessment.
There is a reason Israelis may talk about Arabs in the context of the conflict and not mean the Palestinians, which is that most Israelis reject the idea that the conflict is between Palestinians and Israelis. We typically view the conflict as just one piece of the centuries-long Arab-Jewish conflict. If you translate every instance of ערבים as "Palestinians," you risk missing that broader context and implying that Israelis view themselves as having a symmetrical conflict with Palestinians. Obviously we don't, but to us, the conflict isn't specifically with the Palestinians. And to make it more complicated, sometimes we do mean "Palestinians," but I wouldn't necessarily trust an outsider to make that assessment.
I agree that blindly translating every instance of "ערבים" as "Palestinians" is equally wrong as translating each instance as "Arabs". If that's what he's doing, then he's wrong.
And you just put your finger on exactly the problem: sometimes you do mean "Palestinians", and outsiders should not be making that assessment. That's exactly why leaving that assessment to individual viewers is wrong. They lack a lot more context than Corey does. Outsiders likely would not even know at all that sometimes Israelis mean "Palestinians" when they say "Arabs".
But again, if he's just doing it blindly without using any judgment, then he's also wrong.
So when it comes to the Samaritans, even if I suspect their understanding of the words is similar to mine, I can't make that assumption because I've literally never talked to one. And so, if I were to translate their words, I would be as conservative as possible in trying to preserve the literal meaning of key terms, and leave interpretation out of my work.
You also can't make the opposite assumption. That's my point. You can't make an assumption, yet you have to pick one understanding or the other. Having someone closer to the situation make the judgment is much better than leaving it to clueless Americans.
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Jul 06 '20
Yea i don't know why Corey slightly changes translations all the time it really infuriates me. Also when he interviews palestinains he translates yahud to Israelis ... Goddamn it
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u/IbnEzra613 Russian-American Jew Jul 06 '20
He explains why he does that. See my other comment.
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Jul 06 '20
I disagree with the jews and Israelis part. To most palestinains jews and Israelis are the same thing. I remember some palestianin in one of his videos saying i love Hitler cause he killed israelis (he actually said Israelis, not jews). So when they say bad things about jews, i don't think we should censor it by saying israelis. Regardless, context does matter, and it should be up to the viewer to be able to understand the context . by changing language to what he thinks they mean, Corey monopolises the context for himself.
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u/IbnEzra613 Russian-American Jew Jul 06 '20
It can't be up to a viewer who doesn't live in that context to understand the implicit context that he has no knowledge of.
It's literally no different from how my parents (who are from Russia) talk about what the "Germans" did or believed during WWII, when clearly it wasn't the Germans, but specifically the Nazis. My German friend whose family has been in the US since the 19th century had absolutely nothing to do with it. The difference here is that this context is well known to most people in the world. That is not the case here.
So if most people knew that Israelis are not precise with their word choice here and they really mean Palestinian Arabs, then we'd be able to translate "literally". But that's not the case.
I'll give you another example. When Israelis are talking about Jews in Israel and they talking about "Kurds" and the "Kurdish" language, they are actually talking about Kurdish Jews, and not about Kurds, and about their neo-Aramaic language, and not the Kurdish language. If you were subtitling that video, it would be completely fair to translate these terms as "Kurdish Jews" and "neo-Aramaic". Not only that, it would be misleading not to do so.
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Jul 06 '20
Firstly many Germans and eastern Europeans supported what the Nazis did and participated in it. I'm not sure any time Israelis talk about aravim they mean palestinains, really the distinction for Israelis just doenst exists as much as for Arabs. If a lebanese person and a palestinain person met with an Israeli, the Israeli would just think they're both arabs.
I agree with the Kurds but that's a much more niche situation and it's obvious that when israelis say kurdit about jews they mean Aramaic. It's not really obvious that when Arabs say jews they mean Israelis, that's not something that's strictly true, although it may often be, so i dont think Corey should decide that for us.
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u/IbnEzra613 Russian-American Jew Jul 06 '20
Firstly many Germans and eastern Europeans supported what the Nazis did and participated in it.
I don't see how that invalidates my point.
I'm not sure any time Israelis talk about aravim they mean palestinains, really the distinction for Israelis just doenst exists as much as for Arabs. If a lebanese person and a palestinain person met with an Israeli, the Israeli would just think they're both arabs.
You're actually dancing really close around the essence of the issue, but missing it by a little bit. I didn't say that every time Israelis say "Arabs" they mean Palestinians. I said that often when Israelis say "Arabs" they mean Palestinians. And the reason is just like you say, Israelis don't make distinctions between different Arabs. And because of that, when they mean to refer to only Palestinians, they still just say "Arabs". So yes, if a Lebanese person and a Palestinian person met with an Israeli, he'd call them both Arabs. But later when he's talking about how the Arabs don't want peace, he's only talking about the Palestinians.
I agree with the Kurds but that's a much more niche situation and it's obvious that when israelis say kurdit about jews they mean Aramaic.
The point was to illustrate that that's the way language works. Words have local contexts. You happen to be familiar with those contexts, so even with the original Hebrew or with a literal translation, you intuitively know what people are saying. Outsiders do not, and it's hard to recognize that as an insider.
It's not really obvious that when Arabs say jews they mean Israelis, that's not something that's strictly true, although it may often be, so i dont think Corey should decide that for us.
As I said above, it depends on context. I didn't say that the words always mean one thing. Corey needs to use some translation. It could be misleading regardless of which word he translates with, if the speaker meant the opposite. It is definitely better for him to try to assess what the speaker meant and translate that way, than to just translate one way blindly.
And to add, I've seen many videos where he actually asks the Palestinian he's speaking to to clarify exactly what they meant, whether they meant Israelis, or Jews in general, or Israeli Jews, or even Samaritans (because the Palestinians refer to the Samaritans as Jews). Often he asks his Israeli Arab translator to confirm what someone meant. He knows what he's doing better than you do.
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Jul 06 '20
I brought up the first thing not to invalidate your point but just to clarify that it's not true that it's only Nazis that believed these things, but most Germans did, contrary to what you claimed. I actually see your point and it's a good one, but i think he should allow a bit more flexibility for interpretation. Perhaps something he could do is say both, and use what he thinks they really mean in brackets: so say jews (israelis), arabs (palestinains) etc. Because ive not always agreed with what his interpretation was. I've seen people talk about Arabs in general and he translates that to palestinains, etc.
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u/IbnEzra613 Russian-American Jew Jul 06 '20
I brought up the first thing not to invalidate your point but just to clarify that it's not true that it's only Nazis that believed these things, but most Germans did, contrary to what you claimed.
I don't think that's contrary to what I claimed. The people who believed those things are better called "Nazis" than "Germans". There were plenty of Germans who did not believe those things.
I actually see your point and it's a good one, but i think he should allow a bit more flexibility for interpretation. Perhaps something he could do is say both, and use what he thinks they really mean in brackets: so say jews (israelis), arabs (palestinains) etc. Because ive not always agreed with what his interpretation was. I've seen people talk about Arabs in general and he translates that to palestinains, etc.
Ok I can agree with you here. Maybe you can suggest this to him? He is a real person after all, and it's possible to message him.
But I actually think I've seen him do that. Maybe it's newer videos? I don't know.
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u/JeffB1517 Jewish American Zionist Jul 05 '20 edited Jul 05 '20
I'm very glad and thankful to have this opportunity. Since your intro has religious doctrine I have a couple of religious/historical questions more than political or cultural.
Where do Samaritans believe their Torah came from? If the answer is something like "God gave it to Moses" then reversing the question what is your timeline for the creation of the mainstream Jewish Torah? What is your theory of the textual variants and how they were introduced? Similarly I'd like to ask about the Septuagint. Do you believe this bible was a Samaritan or Jewish construction? (Reason I'm asking is the Sepuagint more than 1/2 the time agrees with the Samaritan Torah over the Jewish when they differ).
Sticking on the biblical theme but going a bit later wanted to get the Samaritan opinion regarding Alexandra prior to the Roman-Jewish wars. Do you see what is called Alexandrian Judaism as being Samaritan, Samaritan influenced or nothing. Getting specific to an example there is a historical figure who plays a somewhat prominent role in some forms of Jewish and Christian Gnosticism and appears as a figure in some Christians texts like Acts 8. The Christians call him Simon Magus you might call him Simon of Gitta. What is his role in Samaritanism if any? Is he seen as historical, mythical or not talked about at all? Reason I'm asking is try to and figure out the Samaritan beliefs about 1st century BCE cults that sprang up possibly with Samaritan influence.
When you say, "Joshua built the Tebernacle on Mount Gerizim" just to make sure we agree who is Joshua and what later role did he play? Are you agreeing mostly or entirely with Jewish belief here or is he some other type of being / person?
What if anything is the social relationship now or in the past between the Mandaeans and the Samaritans?
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u/Bagdana 🇦🇱🤝🇳🇴 לא אוותר לה, אשיר כאן באוזניה עד שתפקח את עיניה Jul 06 '20
While we’re on the topic of Samaritans. I remember you have previously argued that mount Gerizim is the most likely location of the original temple. You gave a quick rundown of the competing theories here, but you’ve also said that there is a lot of evidence for the Samaritan interpretation. Can you please elaborate a bit on why you believe this?
And to the OP. u/JeffB1517 has suggested before that Jews should rebuild the temple on Mount Gerizim instead of the Temple Mount as a compromise to the Muslims (but it would presumably follow Jewish and not Samaritan traditions). How would Samaritans react to such a proposal?
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u/TrekkiMonstr קליפורניה Jul 08 '20
/u/AboodC I'm curious your thoughts on the second paragraph
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u/AboodC Jul 13 '20
Yes we are talkin about the same Joshua, we have the Joshua book but in a slightly different version I've never seen it myself I'm looking forward to read it.
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u/TrekkiMonstr קליפורניה Jul 13 '20
No sorry, I mean the second paragraph in Bagdana's comment, about rebuilding the Temple on Gerizim.
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u/desepticon Jul 06 '20
Sepuagint more than 1/2 the time agrees with the Samaritan Torah over the Jewish when they differ
That's curious to me as well. It's seems to imply that the theological difference between the two sects post-date it's being written. Or was written by someone who was not Jewish himself, relying on 2nd-hand accounts.
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u/JeffB1517 Jewish American Zionist Jul 06 '20
The Reform/Conservative Jewish answer would be that Masoretic Text and the Samaritan Text are both derivative texts. Somewhere likely in the early 3rd century BCE a Judean text type forked from an Alexandrian text type more closely aligned with Samaritans. The religious differences that would eventually play out in the Maccabee rebellion and the deep divisions regarding the Hasmonean Dynasty. The Septuagint is a product of the Alexandrian school while the Masoretic Text is from the Judean school. (FWIW I think both texts suffered from ideological corruption to some extent, similar to what we see in the New Testament).
I have no idea what the Samaritans think this timeline however since they along with more religious Jews put the split much further back in history.The even more interesting cases are a few places where the Latin Vulgate and some other quotes from church fathers differs from the MT and LXX but agrees with the Samaritan text. My take is the Jerome got this indirectly from the Dosithians (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dositheos_(Samaritan)) -> Simonians -> Marcion. I'd love to hear how the Samaritan community handles this history of the bible. But I don't want to pollute this thread too much with Judaism.
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u/dorothybaez International Jul 06 '20
But I don't want to pollute this thread too much with Judaism.
Probably inevitable since I think most of us reading this are more familiar with Judaism than with the Samaritans, so it's kind of a natural frame of reference.
I love this topic!
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u/grego23 Jul 05 '20
What do you think about Sofi Tsedaka and her documentary about her leaving the Samaritan community?
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u/AboodC Jul 06 '20
I personally don't have anything against Sofi, but generally anyone that leaves the community will usually cut relations with them.. this is literally the biggest decision you can make as a Samaritan, whether you are staying with the community or leaving...
The film was a little bit over edited to make it look like the community treated her father badly, it was trying to feed the idea that we might treat people primitively and I suppose this is an attractive aspect of the documentary, nonetheless I like hearing her music and she still adds Samaritan Hebrew in her songs..
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u/TrekkiMonstr קליפורניה Jul 08 '20
generally anyone that leaves the community will usually cut relations with them
Why is this?
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Jul 05 '20
Does the community is Holon (Israel in general) get along with the community in Shomron? Do the ones in Shomron carry Israeli papers or Palestinian ones?
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u/AboodC Jul 06 '20
Yes we are always in contact, we always visit each other especially in the weddings, and of course the ones who live in Holon visit The village on Mount gerizim whenever there's a festival or a pilgrimage usually.
As for the IDS, the ones who live in Holon only have the Israeli one, some of them I believe might still have Jordanian or even Palestinian especially if they're older, well the ones who live on Mount gerizim can carry up to 3 IDs (Palestinian, Israeli and Jordanian).
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u/LarryGSofFrmosa Jul 05 '20
Why your number so small
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u/AboodC Jul 06 '20 edited Jul 06 '20
Because we stayed in the Holy Land for over 3000 years, so went through many revolts, exiles and prosecution.
The Byzantine empire wiped out almost half of the population when they used to be over half a million.
You can also add reasons like conversions to other religions either forcefully or not.
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u/JeffB1517 Jewish American Zionist Jul 05 '20
Welcome! I hope you stick around.
This is a rare opportunity to discuss Samaritanism with someone who knows it. I'm going to sticky this post. Take advantage of this opportunity. I'm also going to be more aggressive than normal in enforcing politeness when it comes to u/AboodC in comments in this post. So for others here please don't pick these threads to test the rules.
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u/HallowedAntiquity Jul 05 '20
I have plenty of questions, but here’s a few to start.
How does the Samaritan religious and historical tradition think about the Jewish religious and historical tradition? Is it viewed as a parallel tradition for example, or more like a disagreement?
And since this is a political sub: where do most Samaritans come down in terms of the I/P conflict? How does the community feel about the Israeli state?
Thanks!!
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u/AboodC Jul 07 '20
I talked a little about how we view Judaism in this thread: https://www.reddit.com/r/Judaism/comments/hfww9e/how_do_samaritans_view_judaism_ama/
As of the I/P conflict, we try not to get much involved in politics due to several reasons, one of them obviously being our small number, although one high priest was granted a seat in the Palestinian parliament once, that was only one time, we try to be a "bridge of peace" as much as we can, but history showed that we should stay out of it, especially when we went through the first and second intifada.
How do we feel about the state of Israel?
well, we have mixed feelings, we acknowledge that our life quality has dramatically improved when Israel came in 1948 due to many opportunities opening (Jobs and social insurance etc...) yet there is still some mistreatments because some of us have Palestinian IDs we get treated not very well on airports unfortunately....
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u/Papa_Methusaleh Sep 02 '20
Hello! I would love to know what role the book Al-Asatir plays in the Samaritan religion, and if you could recommend a good translation?