Tuneful Jewish prayers echoed off the elaborate blue tiles inside the synagogue – an interior that could pass for a mosque were it not for the Hebrew inscriptions and menorah – as the worshippers bowed left and right.

The men, with their yarmulkes, were packed on the benches downstairs, while upstairs the women, in brightly coloured headscarves, alternated between praying and gossiping. Their chit-chat grew so loud that the rabbi broke off several times to shush them.