Levi ben Abisha ben Phinhas ben Yitzhaq

Last updated April 17, 2019

Levi ben Abisha ben Phinhas ben Yitzhaq; (1920–May 23, 2001), served as the Samaritan High Priest from 1998 until his death. In his secular work prior to his retirement, he was chief clerk in the Nablus bus company. Before and after his retirement from secular work he was a genial and well-known teacher. He was the first Samaritan high priest to visit the United States. He petitioned the Israeli Supreme Court to grant Samaritan priests equality in law with rabbis; the petition was still pending at the time of his death. He lived in Nablus in the West Bank and is buried in the cemetery of Kiryat Luza on Mount Gerizim. He was succeeded as high priest by his second cousin Saloum Cohen.

Samaritan High Priest Wikimedia list article

The Samaritan High Priest is the high priest of the remaining Samaritan community in the Levant. According to the Samaritan's tradition, the office has existed continuously since the time of Aaron, the brother of Moses, and has been held by 133 priests in the last thirty-four centuries. However, the historicity of this claim is disputable; the office itself may go back into the Hellenistic period, which would still make it the oldest, constantly occupied, religious office in the world. One account by Josephus suggests that its office holders are an offshoot of the Zadokite high priests of Jerusalem from around the time of Alexander the Great.

Nablus is a city in the northern West Bank, approximately 49 kilometers (30 mi) north of Jerusalem,, with a population of 126,132. Located between Mount Ebal and Mount Gerizim, it is the capital of the Nablus Governorate and a Palestinian commercial and cultural center, containing the An-Najah National University, one of the largest Palestinian institutions of higher learning, and the Palestinian stock-exchange.

In Judaism, a rabbi is a teacher of Torah. The basic form of the rabbi developed in the Pharisaic and Talmudic era, when learned teachers assembled to codify Judaism's written and oral laws. The first sage for whom the Mishnah uses the title of rabbi was Yohanan ben Zakkai, active in the early-to-mid first century CE. In more recent centuries, the duties of a rabbi became increasingly influenced by the duties of the Protestant Christian minister, hence the title "pulpit rabbis", and in 19th-century Germany and the United States rabbinic activities including sermons, pastoral counseling, and representing the community to the outside, all increased in importance.

Preceded by Yoseph ben Ab-Hisda ben Yaacov ben Aaharon	Samaritan High Priest 1998–2001	Succeeded by Saloum Cohen

Sources

The (London) Independent, 4 June 2001.

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