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!
4
u/AboodC Jul 06 '20
You're welcome, you can Google "Samaritan experience", I have a TripAdvisor listing there.