The Samaritans constitute a religious community with some 800 members as of 2020. They live in a village on Mount Gerizim near Nablus, Palestine, and in Holon outside Tel Aviv in Israel. The community has an undisrupted history of more than 2,000 years, and over the last few decades, their numbers have been increasing. Samaritanism is a religion based upon the five Books of Moses in the Hebrew Bible and upon the holy rites performed on Mount Gerizim, their sanctuary since ancient times. Ethnically, they trace their roots to the ancient Israelite tribes of Joseph and Levi.

The Société d’Études Samaritaines is an international organization for scholars working with Samaritan literature, languages, history, religion, theology, rites, calendar, music, and more. At present the society has 43 members, who work in academic institutions from Australia to Canada, from Israel to Scandinavia.