ABSTRACT

The Holon Samaritans speak Modern Israeli Hebrew and have absorbed much of the daily culture of Israel. The Samaritans have a biblical religion that stands in the Israelite tradition. Their Bible is thinner than that of Jews or Christians. Their only holy writ and formative document is the Torah. Free to practice their religion in either local group, the modern Samaritans pursue a set of religious practices that shows affinity to that of rabbinical Judaism, but is particular enough to serve as a marker of difference from it. The liturgical languages of the Samaritans are Aramaic and Hebrew in their special Samaritan variants. Their lives may look otherwise, as long as there are people who believe in the sanctity of Mount Gerizim, there will be Samaritans. They settled down in the newly bustling area of Jaffa/Tel-Aviv and, since the early 1950s, in a separate sectarian neighborhood in nearby Holon.