It was hardly the lavish oddity he expected it to be. In a dense row of thatched huts stood the lone building that had open space around it--a two-storeyed cottage with a modest compound, the Star of David prominent and proud on its walls and gates. This could easily have been a merchant's run-down home back in Cordoba, except that the star would have been branded very small and only once on the gates by the authorities: a mark of shameful identification rather than a glorious declaration.

"A small synagogue," he said.
"The only one here," said Ahmed.

He rubbed his hand against the chipped star on the gate, feeling obliged to say a small prayer: he was far away from home, far away from Jerusalem, and yet, he had found a place where he hoped to find a few of his own tribe. But no prayer passed his lips, no words distilled his thoughts; he felt a sense of weariness and relief that one feels when finally finding the home of a long-lost loved one. He stood there, staring at the bruised stars on the gate, wondering how many lost souls they had witnessed before his arrival.

The compound was a failed attempt at gardening--an attempt nevertheless: flowery shrubs jostling greedily for space, attention, and sunlight. He opened the door and stepped inside the antechamber, quickly passing it, eager to get a glimpse of the prayer hall.

"Welcome home, son, and for that exact reason, please leave your shoes out," said the rabbi in Hebrew that was so thick with accent, it took him a few unblinking moments to realise he was was being addressed.

As he stepped inside, his senses besotted by the familiar and the unfamiliar, he thought how 'Welcome home, son' was the most apt greeting one could utter in this place. Had this been a marble-filled synagogue with high columns, stained glass, and a huge prayer hall with a rabbi in long droopy robes, he would not only have not felt at home, he would have felt lost in the very space he wanted to feel at home. Home--sounded strange and yet he could not use any other word for the synagogue. It was too modest to invoke faith or God or prayer: it was an intimate, earthly place, the kind where one would expect to hear gossip rather than gospel.