“Love is the only force capable of transforming an enemy into a friend”

            Martin King Luther

 

Last week I had one of the most amazing travels in my life, with 23 awesome friends, we went to beautiful Poland with an important message: to share the story of our ancestors and tell the world about our message of peace and love. The Samaritans are a group of people that trace their origins since the biblical times, from the ancient Israelites who lived in the kingdom of Israel (Samaria) numbered more than a couple of millions, since they have never left the holy land, they suffered the many wars and revolts from the many nations that controlled their regions until their numbers went down to only 141 in 1919, it was down to a small community in Nablus, to keep the generations going.

In 2009, my uncle Jacob Cohen, started an association to start giving lectures and educating people from all over the world about the Samaritans, he called it “The Samaritan Legend Association”, today the associations consists of more than 35 members that want to keep the “legend” alive.

People all over the world know about the Good Samaritan story from the bible, but most of them don’t know that there is still community that lives until this day in the holy land that are known to be a descendants of the ancient Israelites who entered the holy land before 3650 years ago. They can trace 137 of generations back since the first high priest in the holy land.

Our third travel outside the country was to Warsaw in Poland last week; we had 2 lectures to give about the Samaritans, one in the University of Warsaw and the other is in the Palace of Culture and Science, people there were very welcoming and generous. It was their first time meeting “The Good Samaritan” as one of the students told me: “I always hear the term “Good Samaritan” on the streets and from TV, but I never knew that there is still a community that lives until this day that are actually from the Samaritans!” I wouldn’t blame him as this community only consists of about 800, half of them living on their holy Mountain: Gerizim and the other half in Holon, Tel-Aviv, one of the teachers in the university asked for a few books about the Samaritans so they could put them in the library, as they felt that there was an important story to be told from the Holy Land missing. We had a few more days to explore Warsaw and visit a few museums in it like the POLIN museum and the Military Museum, and we have also went to the known concentration camps in Krakow. I was truly an experience to remember.

The Samaritans who live on Mount Gerizim have 3 Citizenships, Palestinian, Jordanian and Israeli, and they have always been a bridge of peace between the two nations in the Holy land.We shared our story in Poland of how we suffered many wars and revolts, and that without peace and love between all nations, we can never expect any good outcomes. It has been truly a privilege to be able to represent my community in Poland, and I’m looking forward to the many countries that we will visit to share this important message with all the world.

I was inspired and empowered to do this as a result of my participation in the Encompass Trust program in the U.K. It was the first time I talked about my community, and the interest and acceptance of my fellow participants was proof to me that others would like to learn about the Samaritans.