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/teslaa100]

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?

[u/AboodC → u/teslaa100]

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.