Israeli Minorities: The Samaritans


Figure 1.--Israel hs a small Samaritan community of about 800 people. This photo was taken in a Samaritan Synagogue. For the prayer they wear white tunics and fez. Entering in the synagogue they take off their footwear.

One particulrly interesting Isreali ethnoreligious minority, albeit now very small, are the Samaritans. Christians are familiar with the Biblican Samaritans, but less so with what becane of them after the Roman expulsion of the Jews (2st century AD). They are descended from the same ancient Semitic inhabitants of the Levant as Jews. The Samaritans practice Samaritanism, an Abrahamic religion wiyh the sane roots as Judaism and cloesly related to it in practice. They also have a Torah. The Biblical explanation of the Samnaritans is that with the Babylonian Captivity the remaiing in Irael lapsed and failed to follow a range of Jewish practives. Samaritans claim in contrast that it was theJews in captivity changed and adopted newc practices. And that is they who remained loyal to to true religion of the ancient Israelites prior. They contend it was they who preserved the ancient religious practices and it is Judaism that is the altered faith. This is difficult to sort out, but historically we know that there were ancient Hebrews that the Babylonians took back to Babylon and Hebrews that remaned in Israel. The Samaritans claim descent from tribes of ancient Isrel. This is more conjectural. The Smaritans identify with the tribes of Ephraim and Manasseh (the two sons of Joseph [son of Jacob] as well as others from the priestly tribe of Levi who had connections to ancient Samaria from the period of their entry into the land of Canaan. Others suggest that disent came from the beginning of the Babylonian Exile up to the Samaritan Kingdom of Baba Rabba. The Samaritans derive their name from no geographical designation, but from the Hebrew term Shamerim שַמֶרִים, meaning 'Keepers [of the Law]". The difference between the returning exiles and the Sanaitabs caused a good eal of ill-will. This is the backgound of Jesus' parable about the Good Damaritan. Obviously the Jewish people saw most Samaritans as wicked people. Samaritans were a large community—up in new Testament and late-Roman times, perhaps a million people. The population began falling n Byzantine times. The Zantines suppressed the Samaritans in what has become known as the Third Samaritan Revolt (529 AD). This type of intolerance is one reason the Byzatine Empire was unable to resist Arab incursions. Mass conversion to Islam followed in the early Muslim period of Palestine. This reduced the Samaritans to less than 100,000 in only a few centuries. Today in modern Israel there are less than 1,000 Samaritans. This is the only in tact Samaritan community. They live in two places. One is in Kiryat Luza on Mount Gerizim near Nablus in the West Bank. The other is in Israel proper, Holon. Eight families have been found in Gaza City. There are also followers of Samaritan traditions with a variryu of background located outside Israel, parucularly in the United States.








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Created: 6:05 AM 2/1/2013
Last updated: 6:05 AM 2/1/2013