samaritanism is an abrahamic or semitic religion closely related to – or by some considered an early derivative of – judaism, practiced by the samaritan (hebrew: שומרונים "shomronim", arabic: السامريون "as-sāmariyyūn") ethnoreligious group, who mostly reside in the region of the levant and claim ancestry to israelites with connections to the ancient eastern mediterranean kingdom of samaria. the samaritan ethnoreligious group and the subsequent samaritan religion are considered to be, demographically, the smallest of their kind in modern times, with the number of samaritans worldwide totalling at just 712 as of late 2007.