New museum exhibit seeks to indicate Samaritans are greater than a biblical parable

(RNS) — Rising up, when Steven Advantageous realized in regards to the Kutim, the Samaritans, within the Talmud, the references “went on this ear and out the opposite.” In 1977, he met a Samaritan for the primary time at one of many salons the late Jewish folklorist and Hebrew College professor Dov Noy hosted — “Each week, it was like going to the all-star recreation!” — however he didn’t meet simply any Samaritan that day. Benny Tsedaka, who stays a buddy, was the son of the neighborhood’s chief.

Abruptly, that biblical folks — finest recognized for the protagonist in Jesus’ well-known parable of The Good Samaritan — turned actual to Advantageous, a school sophomore on the time.

Now a professor of Jewish historical past at Yeshiva College, Advantageous nonetheless has that biblical folks on the mind, and Samaritans are having one thing of a cultural second.doc

Advantageous co-curated the exhibit “The Samaritans: A Biblical People,” which opened Sept. 16 on the Museum of the Bible in Washington, and edited a brand new scholarly volume of the identical title. He was tutorial adviser to the first-ever Samaritan cookbook in 2020 and to a brand new documentary about Samaritans by filmmaker Moshe Alafi.

Additionally in 2022, the superhero movie “Samaritan” starring Sylvester Stallone ostensibly pits — with out too many spoilers — the good-guy Samaritan in opposition to evil brother Nemesis. The movie takes as a right that viewers acknowledge the reference from Luke’s gospel.

In his parable, Jesus tells of a “sure Samaritan” who tends to the injuries of a person, whom bandits left for useless. Although a priest and Levite go the sufferer by, the Samaritan masses him on his animal, takes him to an inn and settles with the innkeeper.

“Which of those three do you assume was a neighbor to the person who fell into the palms of robbers?” Jesus asks, per the New Worldwide Model.

Right now, each state in America has a model of a “Good Samaritan Legislation,” shielding those that present emergency remedy from most malpractice fits. In an unlikely flip of destiny, Tzili Charney, widow of Leon Charney, who was instrumental in creating New York’s Good Samaritan Legislation, has supported lots of Advantageous’s Samaritan projects.

Images of the Samaritan neighborhood on show on the Museum of the Bible. Picture courtesy of Museum of the Bible

Jeffrey Kloha, chief curatorial officer on the Bible Museum, cites the “Seinfeld” episode, through which the primary characters are arrested below a Good Samaritan Legislation for not serving to somebody in want. “The Samaritans had been an historic tribe — very useful to folks,” Kramer (Michael Richards) explains. Kloha laughs off the latter clause however corrects the tense of the previous. The Samaritans will not be a relic of the previous, however a dwelling folks.

That’s the principal lesson Advantageous and exhibit co-curator Jesse Abelman, the museum’s Hebraica and Judaica curator, hope guests will take away from the present.

In an interview on the Bible Museum, which principally transpired in Hebrew with a translator current, Yefet Tsedaka — whose brother Advantageous met in 1977 — mentioned the Samaritan neighborhood is happy with the exhibit, with which it was very concerned.

Yefet Tsedaka at Museum of the Bible. Picture by Menachem Wecker

There are at present 862 Samaritans, up from 145 in 1917, in keeping with Tsedaka. Most stay both within the West Financial institution, on Mount Gerizim, which is sacred to them, or within the metropolis of Holon, simply exterior Tel Aviv. Samaritans will not be Jews however are a part of “Am Yisrael,” the Israelite folks. Every Samaritan, Tsedaka mentioned, can hint again to which tribe — Ephraim, Menasseh or Levi — she or he comes from.

Samaritans have lived within the Holy Land since biblical occasions, in keeping with Tsedaka, who as soon as informed former Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, “You’re a visitor of ours.”

Regardless of Samaritan longevity in Israel, the neighborhood has confronted a “gender imbalance,” at occasions 5 males to each two girls, in keeping with Tsedaka. In a controversial transfer, his grandfather married a girl from exterior of the neighborhood, which the then-high priest endorsed. She transformed and, partially because of her dogged nature, turned accepted in the neighborhood.

In recent times, Samaritan males have married Ukrainian girls, who transfer to Israel, convert and be a part of the neighborhood. Requested whether or not the conflict in Ukraine has impacted such matches, Tsedaka mentioned the neighborhood is poised to face a special problem. Having so zealously introduced in exterior girls, Samaritans could have considerably extra girls than males inside a decade or two. It’s far more problematic from the neighborhood’s perspective for out of doors males to affix.

“That might be for the excessive priest to resolve,” mentioned Tsedaka.

The Museum of the Bible exhibit, which incorporates artifacts spanning from the second century earlier than the Widespread Period to modern work made previously couple of years, notes that Samaritans, who’re talked about in each Jewish and Islamic texts, have usually clashed with each.

One wall textual content tells of Sixteenth-century Huguenot Hebraist Joseph Scaliger, who requested texts from an Egyptian Samaritan neighborhood, solely to have these texts misplaced in a shipwreck. They had been recovered, sparking additional Christian curiosity in Samaritans.

The personalized Samaritan typewriter of Rabbi Moses Gaster, on show within the Samaritan exhibit at Museum of the Bible. Picture by Menachem Wecker

One other vitrine incorporates the customized typewriter that Rabbi Moses Gaster (1856 – 1939) used to correspond with Samaritans dwelling in Nablus, on the base of Mount Gerizim. When he typed in Jewish Hebrew letters, the textual content was printed in Samaritan Hebrew letters. His penpal, Jacob, son of Aaron, the excessive priest, “noticed a possibility to harness Gaster’s tutorial platform and fame to amplify Samaritan tradition,” the wall textual content states.

The present highlights many Samaritan non secular practices, which frequently resemble Jewish ones. Samaritans sacrifice paschal lambs yearly, drawing many exterior spectators. It’s the solely monotheistic group that also sacrifices animals, in keeping with the documentary.

On the Sukkot vacation (Tabernacles), Samaritans construct ritual huts. Whereas Jews usually construct theirs exterior — and keep away from something overhanging the highest of the sukkah — Samaritans make them indoors and beautify them with contemporary fruit. A Samaritan sukkah on show on the Museum of the Bible had plastic fruit, a few of which the curators bought from Pastime Foyer, in keeping with Abelman. (Steve Inexperienced, president of Pastime Foyer Shops, is chairman of the museum’s board.)

Samaritans hold the Sabbath and ritual purity legal guidelines strictly, they usually, too, maintain the Torah sacred. However Samaritan and Jewish Scripture will not be the identical, and Samaritan non secular leaders have dominated very in a different way than rabbis have on ritual issues over the centuries. Most dramatically, Samaritans maintain sacred the mountain Gerizim — the place the Samaritan excessive priest lives — whereas Jews have a special temple mount.

A Samaritan sukkah, created with plastic fruits for show functions, on the Museum of the Bible. Picture courtesy of Museum of the Bible

Advantageous mentioned the Samaritans are a “micro-people,” and have had an actual probability of disappearing. “They match on two 747s,” he mentioned.

He hopes the exhibit will humanize Samaritans. “The reality is, there are good Samaritans. There are dangerous Samaritans. There are common Samaritans. There are sensible Samaritans. There are much less sensible Samaritans,” he mentioned.

“I just like the folks I research, and I wish to give them a voice,” he added.

Throughout the Nationwide Mall from the Museum of the Bible, the Good Samaritan makes an unlikely look on the Nationwide Gallery of Artwork. The exhibit “The Double: Identity and Difference in Art since 1900” doesn’t reference Samaritans, however unbiased scholar Hillel Schwartz’s essay within the exhibit catalog is all about Samaritans, whom he describes as an “Israelite double.”

In biblical occasions, Samaritans “had been next-door neighbors to Judaeans however no kissing cousins,” he writes.

Schwartz, who’s engaged on a e book about emergency that may handle the Good Samaritan, mentioned sermons centering on the parable elevated within the mid-18th century, when emergencies had been first thought of in an institutionalized approach within the West.

A Samaritan Torah scroll from Nablus, circa 1160. Picture by Menachem Wecker

Within the present initiatives on Samaritans, Schwartz doesn’t see new archaeological or textual findings, and he thinks the Samaritan neighborhood has a protracted historical past of supporting initiatives that current it in a optimistic mild. However, he mentioned, it’s no coincidence there’s as soon as once more elevated consideration on Samaritans, noting new analysis on altruism that pushes again in opposition to social Darwinist and neo-liberal tendencies to view the world as every-man-for-himself.

“The truth that you’d have extra curiosity in Good Samaritans is important in that cultural, historic second,” he mentioned. “It is among the present paths towards projecting optimism into the long run.”

In a current discuss to a church group, Advantageous famous the Good Samaritan is the man who doesn’t avert his eyes when somebody is in want. Everybody desires to imagine they’d do as he did, however, Advantageous informed the group, everybody current would possible act not just like the Samaritan, however because the priest and the Levite did and avert their gaze.

“Who has been on the subway and hasn’t?” he mentioned.