Source: The Dallas Morning News

http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/dn/religion/stories/052204dnrelwire4.c6218.html

On May 21, 2004 The Dallas Morning News reported, "Dressed in flowing robes of the type their ancestors wore thousands of years ago, the 670 people in the world who call themselves Samaritans gathered on [Mount Gerizim in the West Bank] one evening in early May and celebrated the holiday of Passover. At sunset in the small mountaintop village they call Kiryat Luza, the male heads of the various clans prayed and then cut the throats of 30 lambs as part of the Pascal sacrifice in accordance with the Book of Exodus. For the remainder of the week, while the world below their mountain carried on its own routine, Samaritan children stayed home from school and their parents from their jobs. They ate special foods, including homemade matzah. Despite the Samaritans' marking of Passover, the Sabbath and other rituals and observances similar to Judaism, Samaritans are not Jews but a distinct people. They are best known from the New Testament parable Jesus told of the Good Samaritan who came to the aid of a mugged and wounded traveler. In contrast to Jews, who follow both the Written Law of the Torah and the Oral Law, the Samaritans adhere only to the Five Books of Moses. Like Orthodox Jews, the Samaritans strictly observe the laws of circumcision, family purity and kosher diet. They write in ancient Hebrew script, the language of their Torah, and pray in the ancient Hebrew dialect spoken by Jews through the first millennium A.D."