WEST BANK: Hundreds of members of the ancient Samaritan religion celebrate Passover with dawn prayers on a West Bank mountain top

Record ID: 565280

  • Title: WEST BANK: Hundreds of members of the ancient Samaritan religion celebrate Passover with dawn prayers on a West Bank mountain top
  • Date: 20th April 2014
  • Summary: MOUNT GERZIM, WEST BANK (APRIL 20, 2014) (REUTERS) SAMARITANS WALKING UP MOUNT GERIZIM BEFORE SUNRISE WITH MOON BEHIND THEM VARIOUS OF SAMARITANS WALKING UP MOUNT GERIZIM VARIOUS OF SAMIRITANS CHANTING AS THEY WALK / ONE MAN HOLDING BIBLE SCROLLS MAN LIFTING SCROLLS AS OTHERS WATCH SAMARITAN MAN LEADING PRAYERS VARIOUS OF SAMARITANS SITTING AND PRAYING
  • Embargoed: 5th May 2014 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: West bank
  • City:
  • Country: Palestinian Territories
  • Topics: Religion,Religion
  • Reuters ID: LVA8PQ04D7L1WTKKRK1VNAMY7DFL
  • Story Text: Several hundred Samaritans, an ancient religious group, gathered before sunrise in the West Bank on Sunday (April 20) for a special prayer, celebrating the second holiday of Passover.
    The Samaritans trace their ancestry to the northern Israelite kingdom that was destroyed by the Assyrians in around 720 BCE. Their faith shares many similarities with Judaism.
    Half of the community lives in the tidy modern village of Kiryat Luza on Mount Gerizim, the faith's holy mountain in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, and the other half lives in the Israeli town of Holon near Tel Aviv.
    Hundreds of members of the unique community gathered just before sunrise on Sunday for a special mountain top prayer, marking the second holiday of Passover.
    Last week, the Samaritans celebrated the first holiday of Passover with the slaughtering of sheep as a sacrifice offered to God for the holiday.
    The Samaritans believe Mount Gerizim near the West Bank city of Nablus was the holy place chosen by God, not Jerusalem. They have their own version of the Torah and holy days similar to Jewish ones.
    They say the Judaism in the south, especially after the sixth century BC Babylonian exile, diverted from the original faith.
    Their differences figure in John's Gospel, where Jesus surprises a Samaritan woman at a well by asking her for water even though Jews and Samaritans did not associate.
    Samaritan historians say there were 1.2 million Samaritans 1,400 years ago. Most of them were killed by Byzantine, and in 1917 only 146 were left.
    The Samaritans of Nablus consider themselves Palestinians, carrying Palestinian identity cards and passports. Some were given Israeli identity cards, while others hold Jordanian passports.
  • Copyright Holder: REUTERS
  • Copyright Notice: (c) Copyright Thomson Reuters 2014. Open For Restrictions - http://about.reuters.com/fulllegal.asp
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