On Friday afternoon, the old men in one of Hara Kebira's many synagogues nod off in the stifling heat, waking periodically to chant or argue Talmud. Suddenly, a Djerba boy showing tsit-tsit (fringes of an undershirt prayer shawl) runs into the doorway, looking for his friend. "Mikhael!" he yells into the sanctuary. The learned scholars do not even seem to notice. While waiting for friend Mikhael to retrieve the soccer ball, the boy observes with curiosity a foreigner behind him in the street. Pointing to his head, the boy addresses the man inquisitively, "Kipah?" stating the Hebrew word for yarmulke or skullcap. Growing up on an island, in the last Jewish village in North Africa, and spending his youth in cheder (Hebrew school), the boy is confused. He seems to wonder, "This man does not look like an Arab, yet he wears no kipah like the Jewish men. Should I invite him to play or not?"

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