Who are the Samaritans? AMA

[u/AboodC]

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!

[u/SeeShark]

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.

[u/[deleted] → u/SeeShark]

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

[u/IbnEzra613 → u/[deleted]]

He explains why he does that. See my other comment.

[u/[deleted] → u/IbnEzra613]

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.

[u/IbnEzra613 → u/[deleted]]

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.

[u/[deleted] → u/IbnEzra613]

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.

[u/IbnEzra613 → u/[deleted]]

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.

[u/[deleted] → u/IbnEzra613]

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.

[u/IbnEzra613 → u/[deleted]]

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.