Great Samaritan laws

Great Samaritan laws offer legitimate assurance to individuals who give sensible support to the individuals who are harmed, sick, in hazard, or generally weakened. At times, Good Samaritan laws urge individuals to offer help. The security is proposed to diminish observers' wavering to help, for apprehension of being sued or arraigned for unintentional harm or wrongful demise. A case of the commitment to help an individual is the Argentinian law on "relinquishment of persons", Articles 106-108 of the Argentine Penal Code, which incorporates the procurement in Article 106 that "an individual who imperils the life or strength of an alternate, either by putting an individual in danger or relinquishing to their destiny an individual not able to adapt alone who must be looked after will be detained for somewhere around 2 and 6 years".

A case of lawful insurance without commitment to act: in as something to be shared law zones of Canada a decent Samaritan tenet is a legitimate standard that keeps a rescuer who has intentionally helped an exploited person in pain from being effectively sued for wrongdoing. Its intention is to keep individuals from being hesitant to help a more odd in requirement for alarm of lawful repercussions if they commit some error in treatment. Great Samaritan laws change from purview to ward, as do their communications with different other legitimate standards, for example, assent, parental rights and the educated refusal right to reject treatment. Most such laws don't make a difference to restorative experts' or vocation crisis res ponders  at work conduct, yet some stretch out security to expert rescuers when they are acting in a volunteer limit.

Samaritan sources

According to Samaritan tradition, Mount Gerizim was the original Holy Place of the Israelites from the time that Joshua conquered Canaan and the tribes of Israel settled the land. The reference to Mount Gerizim derives from the biblical story of Moses ordering Joshua to take the Twelve Tribes of Israel, (the number of which did not include the priestly tribe of Levi) to the mountains by Nablus and place half of the tribes, six in number, on the top of Mount Gerizim, the Mount of the Blessing, and the other half in Mount Ebal, the Mount of the Curse. The two mountains were used to symbolize the significance of the commandments and serve as a warning to whoever disobeyed them (Deut. 11:29; 27:12; Josh. 8:33).

The Samaritans have insisted that they are direct descendants of the Northern Israelite tribes of Ephraim and Manasseh, who survived the destruction of the Northern Kingdom of Israel by the Assyrians in 722 BCE. The inscription of Sargon II records the deportation of a relatively small proportion of the Israelites from Samaria (27,290, according to the annals), so it is quite possible that a sizable population remained that could identify themselves as Israelites, the term that the Samaritans prefer for themselves.

Samaritan historiography places the basic schism from the remaining part of Israel after the tribes of Israel conquered and returned to the land of Canaan, led by Joshua. After Joshua's death, Eli the priest left the tabernacle which Moses erected in the desert and established on Mount Gerizim, and built another one under his own rule in the hills of Shiloh.

Abu l-Fath, who in the 14th century wrote a major work of Samaritan history, comments on Samaritan origins as follows:

A terrible civil war broke out between Eli son of Yafni, of the line of Ithamar, and the sons of Pincus (Phinehas), because Eli son of Yafni resolved to usurp the High Priesthood from the descendants of Pincus. He used to offer sacrifices on an altar of stones. He was 50 years old, endowed with wealth and in charge of the treasury of the children of Israel...

He offered a sacrifice on the altar, but without salt, as if he were inattentive. When the Great High Priest Ozzi learned of this, and found the sacrifice was not accepted, he thoroughly disowned him; and it is (even) said that he rebuked him.

Thereupon he and the group that sympathized with him, rose in revolt and at once he and his followers and his beasts set off for Shiloh. Thus Israel split in factions. He sent to their leaders saying to them, Anyone who would like to see wonderful things, let him come to me. Then he assembled a large group around him in Shiloh, and built a Temple for himself there; he constructed a place like the Temple (on Mount Gerizim). He built an altar, omitting no detail—it all corresponded to the original, piece by piece.

At this time the Children of Israel split into three factions. A loyal faction on Mount Gerizim; a heretical faction that followed false gods; and the faction that followed Eli son of Yafni on Shiloh.

Further, the Samaritan Chronicle Adler, or New Chronicle, believed to have been composed in the 18th century using earlier chronicles as sources states:

And the children of Israel in his days divided into three groups. One did according to the abominations of the Gentiles and served other gods; another followed Eli the son of Yafni, although many of them turned away from him after he had revealed his intentions; and a third remained with the High Priest Uzzi ben Bukki, the chosen place.

Modern times

There were 745 Samaritans, half of whom reside in their modern homes at Kiryat Luza on Mount Gerizim, which is sacred to them, and the rest in the city of Holon, just outside Tel Aviv. There are also four Samaritan families residing in Binyamina-Giv'at Ada, Matan and Ashdod.

After the end of the British Mandate of Palestine and the subsequent establishment of the State of Israel, some of the Samaritans who were living in Jaffa emigrated to the West Bank and lived in Nablus. But by the late fifties, around 100 Samaritans left the West Bank for Israel under an agreement with the Jordanian authorities.

Until the 1980s, most of the Samaritans resided in the Samarian town of Nablus below Mount Gerizim. They relocated to the mountain itself near the Israeli settlement neighborhood of Har Brakha as a result of violence during the First Intifada (1987–1990). Consequently, all that is left of the Samaritan community in Nablus/Shechem itself is an abandoned synagogue. The Israeli army maintains a presence in the area.


During the entire week following the Feast of the Passover, the Samaritans remain encamped on Mount Gezirim. On the last day of the encampment they begin at dawn a pilgrimage to the crest of the sacred mount. Before setting forth on this pilgrimage, however, the men spread their cloths and repeat the creed and the story of the Creation in silence, after which, in loud voice they read the Book of Genesis and the first quarter of the Book of Exodus, ending with the story of the Passover and the flight from Egypt

— John D. Whiting
The National Geographic Magazine, Jan 1920

Relations of Samaritans with Jewish Israelis and Muslim and Christian Palestinians in neighboring areas have been mixed. In 1954, Israeli President Yitzhak Ben-Zvi fostered a Samaritan enclave in Holon, Israel. Samaritans living in both Israel and in the West Bank enjoy Israeli citizenship. Samaritans in the Palestinian Authority-ruled territories are a minority in the midst of a Muslim majority, although the Samaritans are a recognized minority along with Christians and Jews. In Israel the Samaritans operate without the status of a recognised religion. They had a reserved seat in the Palestinian Legislative Council in the election of 1996, but they no longer have one. Palestinian Samaritans have been granted passports by both Israel and the Palestinian Authority.

Samaritan communities tend to be more politically aligned with Israel, regardless of whether they live in Jewish-majority or Arab-majority areas. However, Al-Kahen Wasef al-Samery, a Samaritan leader, declared in 1960 that Israel is an enemy for them as it is an enemy for the Arabs. The Samaritans in Nablus often try to show the differences between them and the Jews, more so than those who live in Holon. Samaritans have stated that the military authorities do not treat them as a minority. On the contrary, they felt that they were treated like West Bank Arabs. Prior to 1948, the Samaritans were divided politically into two factions. The first was led by Sadaqa al-Kahen, who supported the Palestinian Arab leader Mohammad Amin al-Husayni, while the second faction was led by Wasef al-kahen, who supported another Palestinian Arab leader, Ragheb Nashashibi.

As a small community physically divided between neighbors in a hostile region, Samaritans have been hesitant overtly to take sides in the Arab-Israel conflict, fearing that doing so could lead to negative repercussions. While the Samaritan communities in both the West Bank's Nablus and Israeli Holon have assimilated to the surrounding culture, Hebrew has become the primary domestic language for Samaritans. Samaritans who are Israeli citizens are drafted into the military, along with the Jewish citizens of Israel.

One of the biggest problems facing the community today is the issue of continuity. With such a small population, divided into only four families (Cohen, Tsedakah, Danfi and Marhib) (a fifth family died out in the last centuryWhich century? See this discussion. and a general refusal to accept converts, there has been a history of genetic disease within the group due to the small gene pool. To counter this, the Samaritan community has recently agreed that men from the community may marry non-Samaritan (primarily, Israeli Jewish) women, provided that the women agree to follow Samaritan religious practices. There is a six-month trial period prior to officially joining the Samaritan community to see whether this is a commitment that the woman would like to take. This often poses a problem for the women, who are typically less than eager to adopt the strict interpretation of Biblical (Levitical) laws regarding menstruation, by which they must live in a separate dwelling during their periods and after childbirth. There have been a few instances of intermarriage. In addition, all marriages within the Samaritan community are first approved by a geneticist at Tel HaShomer Hospital, in order to prevent the spread of genetic disease.

The head of the community is the Samaritan High Priest, who is selected by age from the priestly family, and resides on Mount Gerizim. The most recent high priest was Elazar ben Tsedaka ben Yitzhaq, who died on 4 February 2010. He will be replaced by his cousin Aharon Ben-Av Chisda.

Samaritan

The Samaritans (Hebrew: שומרונים‎ Shomronim, Arabic: السامريون‎ as-Sāmariyyūn) are an ethnoreligious group of the Levant. Religiously, they are the adherents to Samaritanism, an Abrahamic religion closely related to Judaism. Based on the Samaritan Torah, Samaritans claim their worship is the true religion of the ancient Israelites prior to the Babylonian Exile, preserved by those who remained in the Land of Israel, as opposed to Judaism, which they assert is a related but altered and amended religion brought back by those returning from exile.

Ancestrally, they claim descent from a group of Israelite inhabitants from the tribes of Ephraim and Manasseh (the two sons of Joseph) as well as some descendants from the priestly tribe of Levi, who have connections to ancient Samaria from the period of their entry into the land of Canaan, while some suggest that it was from the beginning of the Babylonian Exile up to the Samaritan Kingdom of Baba Rabba. The Samaritans, however, derive their name not from this geographical designation, but rather from the Hebrew term Shamerim שַמֶרִים, "Keepers [of the Law]".

In the Talmud, a central post-exilic religious text of Judaism, their claim of ancestral origin is disputed, and in those texts they are called Cutheans (Hebrew: כותים‎, Kuthim), allegedly from the ancient city of Cuthah (Kutha), geographically located in what is today Iraq. Modern genetics has suggested some truth to both the claims of the Samaritans and Jewish accounts in the Talmud.

Although historically they were a large community — up to more than a million in late Roman times, then gradually reduced to several tens of thousands up to a few centuries ago — their unprecedented demographic shrinkage has been a result of various historical events, including, most notably, the bloody suppression of the Third Samaritan Revolt (529 AD) against the Byzantine Christian rulers and the mass conversion to Islam in the Early Muslim period of Palestine. According to their tally, there were 712 Samaritans as of November 1, 2007, living exclusively in two localities, one in Kiryat Luza on Mount Gerizim near the city of Nablus in the West Bank, and the other in the Israeli city of Holon. There are, however, followers of various backgrounds adhering to Samaritan traditions outside of Israel, especially in the United States.

With the revival of Hebrew as a spoken language by Jews in Israel, and its growth and officialization following the establishment of the state, most Samaritans in Israel today speak Modern Hebrew. As with their counterpart Muslim, Christian, Druze and other Israeli religious communities, the most recent spoken mother tongue of the Samaritans was Arabic, and it still is for those in the West Bank city of Nablus. For liturgical purposes, Samaritan Hebrew, Samaritan Aramaic, and Samaritan Arabic are used, all of which are written in the Samaritan alphabet, a variant of the Old Hebrew alphabet, distinct from the so-called square script "Hebrew alphabet" of Jews and Judaism, which is a stylized form of the Aramaic alphabet. Hebrew, and later Aramaic, were languages in use by the Jewish and Samaritan inhabitants of Judea prior to the Roman exile, and beyond.