Samaritan Passover 2016

PHOTO ESSAY: In Pictures: Samaritans perform sacrificial Passover ritual. "The ceremony has not changed and it will not change," says 67-year-old participant (TOVAH LAZAROFF, Jerusalem Post).

He was one of several hundred Samaritan men of all ages, dressed in white, who participated Wednesday night in the Passover ritual of slaughtering and sacrificing sheep to symbolize the ancient people of Israel’s journey from slavery to freedom.

On Friday night, Jews around the world will symbolically mark the animal sacrifices once conducted by priests during Passover when the Temple stood in Jerusalem less than 2,000 years.

Many Jews do this by placing a roasted chicken wing on their Seder plate or the roasted leg of a lamb, the actual animal that was slaughtered at the time.

But the Samaritans, a small sect of some 800 people that claim direct descent from of the tribes of Ephraim and Menashe, still engage in the ritual slaughter of sheep according to the instructions set out in the Book of Exodus.

The Samaritans celebrate Passover, but on a slightly different schedule from Jewish Passover. This year Samaritan Passover appears to have begun on Wednesday 20 April. Past posts on Samaritan Passover are here and links.