By Helena Merriman
BBC News, Nablus
3 January 2011 Last updated at 05:36 ET
3 January 2011 Last updated at 05:36 ET
The Samaritan community has lived in the Middle East for thousands of years - but they are having to find new ways to secure their future, Helena Merriman reports from the West Bank.
On 8 November 2001, during the second intifada (uprising), Joseph Cohen, a 56-year-old Samaritan, was driving home from the Palestinian town of Nablus.
"When I was almost home, I came across two Palestinian boys and they shot me," he says. "The blood ran from me like water."
