THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS

Revival of Samaritan Community Recalled

By EMMA KIMOR
World Zionist Press Service

slaughtering ceremony on
Mt. Gerizim in Shomron in
Usually the death of a the month of Nissan, Which
prominent old man means also marks the beginning of
the end of an era. Not so the Samaritan year. Their
with the head of the own High Priests are Co-
Samaritan community in hens, formerly tracing their
Israel, • Yefet Ben Avraham lineage directly to the first
Tsedaka, who died in Holon High Priest, Aaron.
Samaritan children of
at age 87.
The innovations he either sex start learning the
brought about in his Torah from the early age of
lifetime live on. He will be 5 or earlier; their studies in-
remembered especially for clude reading the ancient
his role in the revival of the Hebrew script, which they
Samaritan community, as regard as original Samari-
well as in the founding of tan. Handsomely handwrit-
the Israeli-Samaritan set- ten in this script, is a
sheep-skin scroll, 25m. long
tlement in Holon.
Speaking of Samaritans, claimed to have been pro-
one suddenly comes to duced 14 years after
realize that Jews, Hebrews, Joshua's crossing into Ca-
Judeans, Israelites — not to naan, which makes it some
mention Israelis — are 3,000 years old; it is
absolutely not the same safeguarded in the Shomron
thing.
Synagogue, only to be taken
The Samaritans do not out for the Passover festi-
consider themselves as vals once a year.
"Yehudim," the Hebrew
Yefet's father, Avraham
for Jews, in the sense that Tsedaka, was the first
they do not acknowledge Samaritan to leave his
the rabbinical Bible in- hometown in Shomron, to
terpretation and rulings seek work in the then bustl-
of the Tribe of Yehuda ing port town of Jaffa. In the
(Judah), introduced after
1920s and the 1930s young
the destruction of the Yefet was thus brought into
Temple and the sub- direct contact with the
sequent exile of the Jews Jewish immigrants who
biblical ancestors , to were arriving from Europe.
One of the immigrants
Babylon.
They were the ones, so the was a bright-eyed young
Samaritans say, who stayed maiden from Odessa, - who
behind in Samaria during became Yefet Tsedaka's
the Assyrian deportations wife. By marrying a Jewish
as the remaining Tribes of girl, who converted,
Ephraini, Gad and half the . Samaritan Yefet estab-
Tribe of Manasseh on the lished his first "first" — not
West Bank of the River Jor- without the prior blessing of
dan (and are thus part of the the High Priest in Shomron
Ten not-Lost Tribes). In who, besides being the sole
fact, if this is true, they have religious authority, has the
stayed on in the same place right of final decision con-
for all those 3,000 years cerning all ways of life of his
since Joshua's original con- members.
quest of Canaan.
Soon other Samaritan
On the other hand, the men were marrying
Jews held as a fact the story Jewish girls, who com-
as told in II Kings 17 about mitted themselves to the
the Samaritans' pagan- Samaritan laws. One of
Cuthean origin. The rift be- the reasons that it was
tween Judah (Jews) and Is- rarely the other way
rael (Samaritans, Israelites around, was the simple
or Hebrews) went on for fact that there were
centuries, and it took quite about three times as
a few more centuries for it to many males in the com-
heal.
munity as there were
If their name — Samari, females. At the time Yefet
tans in English, Shomronim was married (in 1924), the
in Hebrew — refers to their Samaritans barely num-
place name of Samaria or bered 150 persons al-
Shomron, they prefer how-, together.
Back at the beginning of
ever to be known as
Shomerim, inferring their the century, they had been
being keepers of the Law of branded as a "dying people,"
the Torah (Bible) in its pur- many of them suffering
from the effects of inbreed-
ity.
The Samaritans follow ing. Their mixing with fresh
the Law of Moses or, blood resulted in both heal-
more precisely, their thier children and in the
Torah goes no further growth of the community to
than the first five books, the present number of 500
i.e. the Pentateuch. This — more than triple in a lit- .
they follow "by the tle over half a century.
Still, Yefet's ,grandson
book," and thus practice
very _specific laws, cus- Benyamin Tsedaka, inci-
toms and traditions re- dentally also married to a
garding the keeping of Jewish convert, and co-
kosher, women's "purifi- editor and director of the
cation" period, match- A-B Samaritan News, quips
making and marriage that his family of two adults
ceremonies, strict adher- and four. children already
ence to the eight-day constitute over 1 percent of
period for the circumci- the entire Samaritan popu-
sion of a newborn son, lation!
It was working with new
special prayer position,
and the holding of festi- immigrants in Jaffa that
Yefet met, and befriended,
vals.
The latter ends with the another young immigrant
Passover sacrificial lamb from Russia by the name of

Yitzhak Ben-Zvi. This per-
sonal relationship with the
future second president of
the state of Israel as well as
the latter's interest for
ethnic communities helped
much to promote and foster
the development and revi-
val of the Samaritan com-
munity.
In the years following
the establishment of the
state of Israel in 1948
until 1967, Shomron on
the West Bank was under
Jordanian rule, separat-
ing the Samaritan com-
munity living there from
those living-outside of it.
The Samaritans from Is-
raeli localities Rich as Jaffa,
Rishon Le'Zion and Ashke-
lon further down the coast,
found themselves dispersed
and shut off from their par-
ent community, and it was
then that Yefet Tsedaka's
second "first" occurred.
With the aid of President
Ben-Zvi, he was able to have
a housing project set aside
exclusively for the Samari-
tans of Israel. When these ,
moved in from all places,
they were thus brought to-
gether to form the nucleus
of what has become the
Israeli-Samaritan commu-
nity in Holon.
That was in 1954, and five
years later the foundation of
the first -Samaritan
synagogue in Israel -was
laid, at which ceremony
President Ben-Zvi honored
the Holon community by his
presence. In 1963, the same
year the president died, the
synagogue was inaugu-
rated.
The Holon community
functioned under the
leadership of Yefet, who
served as their head in all
matters except religious
ones, for which only a
person of the priestly
family is qualified, and
the Cohens were all in
Shomron on the other
side of the then Israeli
border. Under a special
agreement with the Jor-
danians, the Holon
Samaritans were allowed
pilgrimages over the
border to their festival
ceremonies on Mt.
Gerizim; which they con-
sider as the only holy
place.
Eventually, with the.
West Bank returning under
Israeli rule, a Cohen priest
moved in to Holon to serve
as religious leader.
Tsedaka continued as
administrative leader, fund
raiser and educator until

his death. Two of his
grandsons, Benyamim and
Yefet Ben Ratson Tsedaka,
have been putting out for
the past 13 years a bi-
weekly, 20-50 page news-
paper, the A-B • Samaritan
News, in the four languages
of modern Hebrew, English,
Arabic and Samaritan He-
brew. In 1981, the Institute
of Samaritan Studies was
founded in Holon— another
"first" honoring Yefet Ben
Avraham's name.
Tsedaka died when the
Holon community had con-
solidated for 28 years and
had gradually taken on
characteristics of its own
that differed in many ways
from the community on the
West Bank, their original
home.
One only has to com-
pare the environments to
which each community
has been exposed, to see
the polarity between the
two: Shomron dominated
by the Oriental culture of
a traditional, religious,
Arab-speaking, Moslem
society; and Holon, a
modern, secularized
society, speaking He-
brew, English and a_
variety of other lan-
guages favorably dis-
posed towards Samari-
tans.
The Samaritans of Holon
wear Western-sytle clothes
(during weekdays), watch
TV and go to movies, drive
cars and even drink and
gamble. 'They serve in the
Israel Defense Forces, go to
Israeli state schools and re-
gard themselves as Israelis.
One might conclude that
such a life style may lead to
their losing their specific
identity. Yet it is not so. In a
research conducted for her
Seminar on Sociology and
Religion at the Hebrew
University . in Jerusalem,
Rachel Kimor points out the
paradox in that liberal mix-
ing with outside influence
tends rather to lessen the
force of attraction to adopt
those influences and leave
their own framework of liv-
ing.
She regards the Holon
colony as "their own
Samaritan world" on ac-
count of their close family
and community ties that are
instrumental in keeping up
their traditional style on
the one hand and the feeling
of "belonging," giving
legitimization to be differ-
ent, on the other.
Excess turns to fatal
vices.

Friday, September 9,=1983 111

lanDri 111111 il3t13 12

Court Fight

The U.S. Justice Depart-
ment last October. initiated
action to deport Bohdan
Koziy, a resident of Ft.
Lauderdale, Fla., for his col-
laboration with the Nazis in
his native Ukraine during
World War II and his par-
ticipation in the murder of a
Jewish family in 1943.
Koziy was stripped of his
U.S. citizenship last March.

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