Legal Status of Samaritans

In early rabbinic writings, Samaritans occupy a hybrid legal status: for example, their wine and priestly dough offerings are accepted as valid sacrifices, but caution is recommended in areas of practice that do not coincide with rabbinic halakhah, as seen in m. Niddah 4:1. The status of Samaritans is disputed in b. Kiddushin 75b–76a. Some see them as forced converts and spurn them; others are more welcoming. In b. Avodah Zarah 15b, Samaritans are differentiated (favorably) from gentiles. While b. Gittin shows the possibility of civil interaction with Samaritans, b. Hullin 6a and Genesis Rabbah 81:3 point to friction and mutual hostility. In general, midrashic writings adopt a hostile approach to the Samaritans.