Samaritanism

Samaritanism is an Abrahamic monotheistic, ethnic religion. It comprises the collective spiritual, cultural, & legal traditions of the Samaritan people.

Often preferring to be called Israelite Samaritans, who originated from the Hebrews & Israelites. They began to emerge as a relatively distinct group after the Kingdom of Israel was conquered by the Neo-Assyrian Empire during the Iron Age. The Neo-Assyrian Empire was the 4th, & penultimate, stage of ancient Assyrian history.

Central to their continuity as an Indigenous Heritage in the Holy Land is keeping the Patriarchal & Mosaic covenant as specified in the Samaritan Torah. Samaritans believe this is the original & unchanged version of the Pentateuch (which is the first 5 books of the Hebrew & Christian bible) since Moses & the Israelites at Mount Sinai.

The Abisha Scroll is traditionally held by the community to be the oldest existing scroll written by Abisha, son of Aaron the priest, around 3,000 years ago based on living tradition. However, Jewish & Christian theologians have made attempts to dispute this claim which proved unsatisfactory.

Judaism claims Samaritanism developed right alongside their own religion. Samaritanism asserts itself as the true preserved form of the monotheistic faith that the Israelites kept under Moses. Samaritan belief also holds that the Israelites’ original holy site was Mount Gerizim, near Nablus, the State of Palestine (West Bank).

They also believe that Jerusalem only attained importance under Israelite dissenters who had followed Eli (In the Book of Samuel, Eli was a priest & judge of the Israelites in the city of Shiloh) to the city of Shiloh.

The Israelites who remained at Mount Gerizim would become the Samaritans in the Kingdom of Judah. Mount Gerizim is revered by Samaritans as the location where the Binding of Isaac occurred. In comparison to the Jewish belief that it occurred at Jerusalem’s Temple Mount.

Today there are only about 900 registered communal members. This puts Samaritanism as 1 of the smallest ethnoreligious groups globally in the Abrahamic faiths. Samaritans believe that this is a prophecy fulfilled from the scriptures: “You’ll be left few in number.”

Though they hope for a future time when a prophet like Moses known as the “Taheb” (Restorer) will perform 3 signs, namely the jar of manna, the staff of Moses, & Cherubim, or the Golden Candlestick.

This time period they believe is when an era of Divine Favor would return, & the hidden tabernacle of Moses would miraculously be revealed for the Israelite people & Mount Gerizim is restored to its former glory.

Samaritans trace their history, as a separate entity, to a period soon after the Israelites’ arrival into the “Promised Land.” Samaritan historiography traces the schism to High Priest Eli leaving Mount Gerizim, where stood the 1st Israelite altar in Canaan, & building a competing altar in nearby Shiloh.

The dissenting group of Israelites who followed Eli to Shiloh would be the ones who, in later years, would head south to settle in Jerusalem (the Jews). Whereas the Israelites who stayed on Mount Gerizim, in Samaria, would become known as the Samaritans.

Genetic studies in 2004 suggest that Samaritans’ lineages trace back to a common ancestor with Jews in the paternally-inherited Jewish high priesthood (Cohanim) temporally near to the period of the Assyrian conquest of the Kingdom of Israel. They’re probably descendants of the historical Israelite population. The Cohanim refers to the Jewish priestly class, male descendants of Aaron the priest.

The Hasmonean king, John Hyrcanus, destroyed the Mount Gerizim Temple & brought Samaria under his control around 120 BCE. This led to a long-lasting sense of mutual hostility between the Jews & Samaritans.

From this point, the Samaritans likely sought to consciously distance themselves from their Judean brethren. Both peoples came to see the Samaritan faith as a religion distinct from Judaism. By the time of Jesus, Samaritans & Jews deeply disparaged one another, as shown by Jesus’ Parable of the Good Samaritan.

The main beliefs of Samaritanism are:

• There’s 1 God, Yahweh, the same God recognized by the Jewish prophets.
• The Torah is the only true holy book & was given by God to Moses. The Torah was created before the creation of the world & whoever believes in it is assured a part in the world to come. The Torah’s status in Samaritanism as the only holy book causes them to reject the Oral Torah, the Talmud, & all the prophets & scriptures, except for a version of the Book of Joshua (which they don’t hold as Scripture), whose book in the Samaritan community is significantly different from the Book of Joshua in the Jewish “Bible.” Moses is considered to be the last of the line of prophets.
• Mount Gerizim, not Jerusalem, is the 1 true sanctuary chosen by God. The Samaritans don’t recognize the sanctity of Jerusalem & don’t recognize the Temple Mount, claiming instead that Mount Gerizim was the place where the Binding of Isaac took place.
• The Apocalypse, called “the day of vengeance,” will be the end of days. When an entity called the Taheb (basically the Jewish Messiah equal) that comes from the tribe of Joseph will come, be a prophet like Moses for 40 years & bring about the return of all the Israelites, following which the dead will be resurrected. The Tahib will then discover the tent of Moses’ Tabernacle on Mount Gerizim, & will be buried next to Joseph when he dies.

The Samaritans have retained the institution of a high priesthood & the practice of slaughtering & eating lambs on Passover Eve. They celebrated Pesach, Shavuot, & Sukkot. But they use a different method from that used in mainstream Judaism in order to determine the dates annually.

For example, Yom Teru’ah (the biblical name for Rosh Hashanah), at the beginning of Tishrei (This is the 1st month of the civil year & the 7th month of the ecclesiastical year in the Hebrew calendar.), isn’t considered a New Year as it is in Rabbinic Judaism.

Their Sabbath is observed weekly by the Samaritan community every week from Friday to Saturday, beginning & ending at sundown. For 24 hours, the families gather together to celebrate the rest day: all electricity with the exception of minimal lighting (kept on the entire day) in the house is disconnected, no work is done, & neither cooking nor driving is allowed.

The time is devoted to worship which consists of 7 prayer services, reading the weekly Torah portion, spending quality time with family, taking meals, rest & sleep, & visiting other members of the community.

Passover is particularly important in the Samaritan community, climaxing with the sacrifice of up to 40 sheep.

The Counting of the Omar remains relatively unchanged. The Counting of the Omar is a ritual in Judaism that consists of a verbal counting of each of the 49 days between the holidays of Passover & Shavuot. However, the week before Shavuot is a unique festival celebrating the continued commitment Samaritanism has maintained since the time of Moses.

During Sukkot, the Sukkah (the temporary hut built for use during Sukkot) is built INSIDE of houses, instead of OUTSIDE like mainstream Judaism. This Samaritan tradition is traced back to the persecution of the Samaritans during the Byzantine Empire.

The roof of the Samaritan Sukkah is decorated with citrus fruits & branches of palm, myrtle, & willow trees. This is in accordance with the Samaritan interpretation of the 4 species designated in the Torah for the holiday. The 4 species are 4 plants (the etrog, lulav, hadass, & aravah) mentioned in the Torah as being relevant to the Jewish holiday of Sukkot.

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1,300-year-old menorah pendant discovered at Temple Mount

https://fed.brid.gy/r/https://www.israelhayom.com/2025/12/15/ancient-menorah-pendant-jerusalem-excavation/

The state of #israel speaks but one language: the language of #hate and #contempt. They shit on the most precious possession of the supposed rival and then call it a prayer.

States as such try to breed bitter people but they will never succeed. Because people, all people, thrive in connection and peace, which constitute their natural state.

No. They will never win.

#jerusalem #templemount #boxingday2024 #gaza

Israel is led by a #fundamentalist, #supremacist ideology, and the #TempleMount, #HaramAshSharif, with its beautiful Umayyad-era shrine to Abraham, is a target. These pricks want to destroy it to build a #ThirdTemple, and #ChristianZionists are funding it for their apocalypse.

https://clapperapp.com/video/Z2jGzEdq41qpWXnB?is_invite=1&r=eJeepp83J8&c=sh&m=co

#Editorial | Fire Israel's Far Right

Sunday’s remark by Heritage Minister Amichai #Eliyahu (Otzma #Yehudit), who said that dropping a #nuclearbomb on the #GazaStrip is an option, is a problem not for #Israeli public diplomacy but rather for Israeli reality.

The problem is not any particular statement, but rather the power and legitimacy enjoyed today, in Israel as a whole and in the government, by the #Kahanist, messianic Jewish far right, which supports# annexation and #occupation and Jewish prayer on the #TempleMount, sees the current war as an opportunity and scorns the international community, international institutions and the laws of war.

This was not a slip of the tongue. In an interview with Radio Kol Barama, Eliyahu said that “there are no uninvolved [civilians]” in the Gaza Strip. Asked by his interviewer whether that meant Israel should drop a nuclear bomb on the Strip, he responded, “That’s one way.” And his subsequent “clarification” – “It is clear to anyone who is sensible that the nuclear remark was metaphorical” – is ridiculous. A #metaphor for what?

Nor is he a lone exception. Eliyahu’s party colleague, lawmaker Yitzhak #Kroizer, told Army Radio on Sunday that “the #Gaza Strip should be flattened, and there should be one sentence for everyone there – death. We have to wipe the Gaza Strip off the map. There are no innocents there.” Entire swaths of the government belong to the dangerous far right: Bezalel #Smotrich, Itamar Ben-#Gvir, Simcha #Rothman, Orit #Strock, Avi #Maoz, Zvi #Sukkot, Limor Son Har-#Melech and their confederates.

Prime Minister Benjamin #Netanyahu’s response was lame. Eliyahu’s statement, he said, was “disconnected from reality,” and the minister will be barred from cabinet meetings until further notice. He ought to have fired Eliyahu, but he chose not to do so; he prioritized preserving his government over preserving Israel.

Netanyahu isn’t the solution, but the problem. He has legitimized Kahanism and the far right. During his years in power, Israel has grown more extreme, and people who used to be loathsome #pariahs are now senior cabinet #ministers. Ideas and values that used to be outside the consensus, such as “transferring” Arabs from Israel, a second #Nakba and Jewish prayer on the #TempleMount, have been normalized under Netanyahu’s irresponsible #leadership.

He is the one who lent legitimacy to political alliances with admirers of Rabbi Meir Kahane, the mass murderer Baruch #Goldstein and the murderer of the #Dawabsheh family. Under his leadership, the settlers have begun setting their sights on the #WestBank’s Area B, which under the #Oslo Accords is under #Israeli security control and #Palestinian civilian control. And the settlers’ radical “hilltop youth” have moved from being intelligence targets of the Shin Bet security service to serving as ministers, #Knesset members, aides and advisers.

The far right’s membership in the government has painted the entire government, and all of #Israel, in far-right colors. The only way to solve the problem is to remove the far right from the government, and from the bounds of Israeli legitimacy. The only way to repudiate Eliyahu’s statement is to repudiate him and those like him. The Otzma Yehudit and Religious #Zionism parties must be fired from the #cabinet immediately.

The above article is Haaretz’s lead editorial, as published in the Hebrew and English newspapers in Israel.

https://www.haaretz.com/opinion/editorial/2023-11-06/ty-article/.premium/fire-israels-far-right/0000018b-a11c-dc0b-a1cb-e5de69890000