A Very Small, Very Old Community

This entry records that Samaritanism, an ancient Israelite religious tradition closely related to but distinct from Judaism, with its own version of the Torah, its own priesthood tracing claimed descent from Aaron, and Mount Gerizim rather than Jerusalem as its central holy site, maintains its own distinctive liturgy and prayer tradition performed in Samaritan Hebrew and Aramaic, without reproducing that specific liturgical content here.

The Samaritan community today numbers only a few hundred people, divided between communities in Holon, Israel and near Mount Gerizim in the Nablus area of the West Bank, making it one of the smallest continuously practicing religious communities in the world, with its priesthood and religious leadership responsible for maintaining a tradition of prayer, festival observance and Torah reading that has continued with its own distinct character for well over two thousand years despite the community's extremely small size. Samaritan religious identity is inherited patrilineally and the community has historically required marriage within the group, a practice that combined with its very small population size has led to documented concerns about genetic health within the community, prompting some recent and closely studied efforts to responsibly widen the marriage pool.