On Sundays we take a break from our chapter-a-day pace through the New Testament and look at topics related to recent readings.
A reader of the New Testament learns that there is a collection of people called "the Samaritans." They are mentioned by Jewish leaders in derogatory ways (in the Gospel of John, for example) while Jesus uses them in his story about the "Good Samaritan." The Samaritans represent a New Testament ethnic and racial division and it is interesting to see how Jesus interacts with the Samaritans.
To the devout Jew, the Samaritans were a mixed breed, involved in a false version of Judaism. To many the term "Samaritan" was derogatory. When Nicodemus challenges the Jewish leaders in John, they respond by calling him a Samaritan.
The Samaritans developed as a separate, distinct portion of Israel, probably around the time of the Assyrian invasion in 721 BCE. They may have originated from the northern tribes of Israel and were later accused of intermarriage with the local, pagan inhabitants. A lengthy Wikipedia article on the Samaritans provides considerable details of their history.
In that racial environment, Jesus goes out of his way to include them in his ministry. He deliberately begins a conversation with a single Samaritan woman in John 4, breaking a number of social taboos. He heals Samaritans in the gospels. He uses a Samaritan as his central figure in a lecture on the meaning of the phrase "Love your neighbor" (see Luke 10: 30-37.) Luke's gospel also records Jesus healing ten lepers; it is the Samaritan who returns to thank him (Luke 17: 11-19.) In John 8, Jesus is accused of being a Samaritan, a charge which he does not refute. (He is also charged with being demon-possessed and does respond to that accusation.)
In Acts, Samaria is the next region, after Judea, to be evangelized. (Acts 1:8, Acts 8:1-25.)