Remember the biblical parable of "the Good Samaritan", preached by Jesus of Nazareth? A Jewish traveller is mugged and left for dead on the roadside. A Jewish priest and a scholar of religious laws both pass by "on the other side" and ignore him; a Samaritan, by contrast, stops and offers him compassion, medical aid, food, water, means of transport and somewhere safe to sleep. Jesus told the story to the Jews in answer to the question from a smart-arse lawyer: "Who is my neighbour?", having already told them that the greatest commandment of all - equal to 'love God' - is 'love thy neighbour as thyself'. Neither priest nor scholar are neighbourly; the Samaritan is

The etical force of the story hinges on the fact that Jews at the time were deeply antagonistic to Samaritans, with the special kind of emnity that is everywhere reserved for groups who hold 99% identical (religious or secular) beliefs but differ on some detail that everyone decides is an irreconcilable schism. Samaritans were essentially Jews, who became a separate faith community at some point during Jewish history

There were once over a million Samaritans. As of 2022 there were 874 in the Levant, living in two distinct communities - one in a village close to conflict-torn Nablus in the Palestinian West Bank; one in a compound within the city of Holon, south of Tel Aviv, in Israel. The former group speak Arabic, the latter Hebrew. The west bank group generally have dual Israeli/Palestinian citizenship but are exempt from service in the Israel Defence Forces; the Holon group have only Israeli citizenship and are drafted in the IDF

The Samaritan village on the West Bank is on the slopes of Mount Gerizim - the mountain that forms one side of the Nablus valley. Cerizim is a variant spelling of Gerizim and, in fact, this baptist chapel near Cardigan was called Gerizim, regardless of the name over the door. It is one of three nonconformist chapels of that name in Wales. Gerizim is in the Hebrew bible and Christian Old Testament as the place where the Jews first offered thanks for their entry to the Promised Land after return from exile in Babylon. For the Samaritan people it is the most holy of places: they regard it (and not the flashpoint Temple Mount in Jerusalem) as the true location chosen by God for the holy temple - this is their main point of schism with mainstream Judaism

I can't help but wonder how the Samaritans are dealing with the horrors unfolding around them now. I can't help but wonder how the man of sorrows would draft his lesson for the people in his homeland today. The closing words, I think, would be the same: "Go and do likewise"