USA WILL JOIN GREAT BRITAIN AND THE EUROPEAN COMMUNITY IN BACKING THE IDEA OF MOUNT GERIZIM AS ZONE OF PEACE

After two months journey over the USA, Canada [Vancouver and Burnaby in British Colombia] and Europe [Geneva/ Switzerland, London/England and Amsterdam/ The Netherlands], Benyamim Tsedaka, chancellor of the High Priest Shalom and co-Director of A.B. - Institute of Samaritan Studies has returned home on Dec. 24, 2002 and reports on the results of this mission as follows:

POLITICAL ACHIEVEMENTS:

In Washington D.C. - Great Success:

1 - The USA State Department will be happy to participate in building Mount Gerizim as a Zone of Peace in the Middle East. The general plan has confirmed nicely before going down to details of projects. Principally the USA is in the back of the idea. Future steps will be taken in the coming months.

2 - The staff of the President of the USA, Mr. George W. Bush, has accepted very nicely the special present that has been brought from the High Priest Shalom b. Amram to the leader of the free world: a Samaritan Israelite Mezuzah, blessing of the High Priest [Numbers, Chapter 6:25], written on parchment paper in a glass frame, hopefully to be hanged in the office of the President, as a great mark of friendship between the President of USA and the Samaritan Israelites. Up to the blessing there is the picture of the High Priest Shalom with a special dedication to President Bush, which at the same day has met in Moscow Russian President Putin.

3 - There were great opportunities to present the issue before tens of central lobbyists of both parties of the Republicans and Democrats in the American capital which was fully utilized.

All contacts and meetings are successfully arranged by Mr. R. Benko, a new great friend of the Samaritan Israelite People and powerful personality in Washington DC politics. Osher Sassoni of the Samaritan Community in Holon who is running with Mr. L. Rynearson the first of the Samaritan web sites has made the first contact with Mr. Benko to the benefit of the Samaritan People. Mr. Benko has met the Samaritan issue by incident while reading an old article about the dying Samaritan Community in the January 1920 issue of the National Geographic Magazine. He was very impreesed and has tried to find out if the dark prophecies of the writer of the article have been fulfilled. Surprisingly he has found that in the contrary the Samaritan People has been increased over four times since that artical and now in a fantastic process of survival. He has got the information from the Samaritan Web Sites in the Internet: www.mystae.com/samaritans html and www.the-samaritans. com. Mr. Benko will be guest of honour in the next Passover Sacrifice on April 15, 2003. While in Washington D.C. Benyamim Tsedaka has been hosted by the nice couple of old friends D. and D. Band.

In San Francisco E A politician Patrick Reinsborow has agreed to draft himself to the fulfilling of the Idea by making contacts with local personalities and organizations. He is young - 30 - and very active. He loved to be part of it.

In Vancouver/British Colombia there was a meeting with Canadian MP, Mr S. Robinson, very prominent in power who has been drafted easily to the idea and he is going to discuss it with the Government of Canada.

In Geneva - Meeting with A. Karides and F. Knutsen who are in charge to the Middle East in World Council of Churches who after it is clarified that the only two sided peace center that they will ever visit is Mount Gerizim center, because the whole other centers of peace are one sided, either Israeli or Palestinian. The Peace Center of the Samaritans is the only option for cooperation and peace between them in a neutral place. Good example to one sided peace center is the one who established by Mr. Shimon Perez the former prime Minister and Foreign Minister of Israel. Despite of investing mamy millions of US dollars in the activities of the center the resulsts are alomost invisible.

Mr. Karides and Mr. Knutsen have agreed to the suggestion and will send soon a delegation to the mountain to check the needs and meet young Samaritans. Future steps will be in March 2003 in Geneva. The meetings in Geneva are helped by the respectful personalities P. Barkay, P. Bursik and B. Engelson.

In London - First meeting with Ms. H. Wintertorn, a representative of government body who gives Tens of Millions of Pounds to Palestinian projects. She was happy to receive the proposal and was very sympathetic to the idea. Further steps will be taken in the coming months.

Then a two hours lunch with Lord E. Avebury, the Chairman of the Human Rights Committee of the British Parliament, who adopted years ago the Samaritan Issue. He is writing now letters of support to get the interest of the new deputy Foreign Minister, M. Brant, who replaced Mr. Ben Bradshaw whose declaration supports highly the idea as it appears in the proposal. Lord Avebury will make pressure on the aforementioned body to include the Samaritans in their targets of support.

The day after - December 18 - Meeting with the Foreign Office officer for Israel, Mr. D. McNaught, who was fully cooperating with the issue and expressed his willingness to do his job well to promote it.

Then meeting with Ms. C. Shelly, who interviewed Benyamim Tsedaka to the Church News - The weekly magazine of the Anglican Church, the patron of all Protestants in the world. It is a very respected and influential magazine. It was a good opportunity to open the issue before the high officials and respected personalities of the Anglican Church.

All the meetings in London have set up by Mr. W. Wong of Jubilee Campaign in London.

CULTURAL AND SOCIAL IMPLEMENTATIONS

In Cincinnati/Ohio, the first place of the journey on the end of October 2002, Benyamim Tsedaka has succeeded to complete cataloguing of the important collection of Samaritan manuscripts in the Hebrew Union College, hosted nicely by Dr. D. Gilner and Prof. Steve Fine and Mrs. A. Rudavski. In the collection there are 52 manuscripts of various objects. The most important one is a bilingual Pentateuch, Hebrew and Arabic from the year 1479 CE. Then followed a special lecture organized by the library and the Jewish Sciences department of the University of Cincinnati, addressed by Benyamim Tsedaka to the senior staff of the two institutions to explain how very important the collection is and the simple ways that exist to make it accessible and useful to a greater number of scholars and students.

In New York City there were courses on the Samaritans in English and Hebrew to groups of the Jewish and Christian Communities which welcomed very nicely by many audiences. Courses like these were addressed to groups in Los Angeles and San Diego in California, in Phoenix/Arizona and Huntingburg and Winslow/Indiana. These courses have been organized mostly by the State of Israel Consulates elsewhere. In Huntingburg/Indiana it was hosted by the wonderful family of Tonyia and Tom Gebhart. Benyamim Tsedaka has met the town Mayor and discussed with him positively an exchange of youth between Huntingburg and the Samaritans.

Further steps have been made to arrange a successful journey of performances of the Samaritan Israelite Music Ensemble of 20 singers of both Samaritan Communities in Holon and Kiriat Luza. The ensemble has already been booked for the international festival of Coral Music that will take place in Missoula/Montana on July, 16-20, 2003. Benyamim Tsedaka has met the executive of the festival in a special lunch they have arranged for him. Now in many places over the USA, like New York City, Washington D.C., San Francisco, Salt Lake City and San Diego, friends of the Samaritan culture are helping to set up more performances to the Ensemble which sings the most ancient music in existence.

In Burnaby near Vancouver/ British Colombia, Benyamim Tsedaka has been hosted by Mr. Richard Shand and his wife Jane. Richard became very fast a very close friend of the Samaritan issue, and as the owner of a big web site he has accepted the suggestion of Benyamim Tsedaka to host a new Samaritan web site which went out in the air on February 2002. The current first visit to Richard’s home has been fully utilized to reorganize the site to make it much wider and useful. The address of the site is: www. mystae. com/samaritans.html.

Many new files have been added to this site that are reflecting the A.B. Institute and Newspaper activities. Clicking on this address is taking the visitor directly to the site that has been edited wisely with much devotion of Mr. Richard Shand who respectfully is joining the growing list of "Good Samaritans" all over the western world.

More in Vancouver, Mr. Shand has helped Benyamim Tsedaka to meet two Professors of Bible of Trinity University, Martin Abegg and Peter Flint, members of the Dead Sea Scrolls group, who discussed with him a future edition in English of the Torah in the hands of the Samaritans. Future cooperation has been agreed in this lunch meeting.

Similar meeting has been arranged in Queens/New York City by Mr. A. Herzig with Prof. S. Leyman, a great Jewish scholar of post Biblical literature, and his two respectful colleagues. It was a great opportunity to fully discuss Samaritan issues and the relations between Jews and Samaritans during the Mishnah and Talmud periods.

In London/England there were meetings with Mr. S. Ireton, who completes a M.A. Degree work on the current political situation of the Samaritans and Dr. F. Nissen of the University of Cambridge who is working currently on Samaritan documents of the Cairo Geniza. Benyamim Tsedaka has talked also with Prof. R. Coggins who wrote an excellent book on Samaritan and Jews in ancient times about the possibility of reevaluating old views in the shade of the new Mount Gerizim excavation findings. Prof. Coggins has asked to get more scientific information about these findings and the excavator Dr. Y. Magen conclusions.

Special contacts have been created with two special interests film producers in London in order to publicize the Samaritan issue in general and the Mount Gerizim peace project in particular. The two producers each with his own film will come soon to meet the Samaritans.

The Journey has ended in Marknesse east to Amsterdam/ The Netherlands where Benyamim Tsedaka hosted By N. and B. Rook of the Sabbatarian Community [Christian Sabbath observers] a stay that utilized to discuss common matters and lessons in ancient Hebrew.

A.B. Services