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Afef Ben Yedder has delicately placed an egg inscribed in a cavity of the oldest synagogue of South Africa of Tunisia, in the hope of obtaining it, even if it is Muslim.
Five years ago, his prayers were answered after his visit to the Ghriba synagogue on the Mediterranean island of Djerba, where Jews will ask a mysterious saint to grant their wishes.
"I prayed for a friend who was having difficulties to have children and he now has a three year old boy.I do not want to mention anything else, and it has come true," she said with a big smile.
This time, Ben Yedder came back with his Jewish childhood friend, Karen, who emigrated to France as a teenager after meeting on Facebook.
It is a chance to pray together and to remember moments spent together in a district of Tunis where they grew up rubbing shoulders with Jewish, Christian and Muslim neighbors.
This year's annual pilgrimage to the Ghriba synagogue coincides with the holy month of Ramadan for Muslims, for the first time since 1987.
The Muslim and Jewish leaders shared Wednesday evening on the island a succulent meal, symbol of cohabitation that Tunisia wants to promote.
The number of Jews in Tunisia has decreased significantly, from around 100,000 before the independence of France in 1956 to around 1,500 today, most of whom live in Djerba.
Ben Yedder is not the only Muslim to join thousands of Jewish pilgrims at the synagogue.
"For 15 or 20 years, more and more Muslims are participating in this pilgrimage," said French historian Dominique Jarbade, co-author of a book on Tunisian synagogues.
Holy places shared
"For a long time, they were spectators, but there is now a form of appropriation, linked to the political situation – because people want to show how tolerant Tunisia is – to tourism because it is a place heritage, and there is undeniably an act of faith on the part of these Muslims, "he told AFP.
"Many are convinced that the saint really has power."
The festival, an important tradition for Jewish Tunisians, is not an ordinary act of worship.
The pilgrims worship a girl – the "Ghriba" – who would have been killed by lightning and who, they hope, will fulfill their wishes – especially for fertility, marital happiness and health.
"This cult of the saints is fairly typical of the region and of Islam, and Judaism has adapted," Jarbade said.
Some pilgrims are surprised to have to take off their shoes at the entrance to the synagogue.
"We are not in a mosque," they say, laughing.
But men and women of all religions can meddle in the interior.
"Anyone who comes in – Catholic, Muslim or Jewish – can pray here," said Laura Touil Journo, from France, who visits each year.
"We do not even know which confession she is herself, this girl," she said, referring to the "Ghriba".
Dionigi Albera, co-organizer of a recent exhibition on shared holy places, said that this phenomenon was quite widespread.
Some Tunisian Jews venerate Sidi Mahrez, a Muslim saint of the 11th century supposed to have defended them.
"Now it has become more complicated, less common, especially as hundreds of thousands of Jews have left the region," Albera said.
"The Ghriba is one of the few visible testimonies" of this phenomenon.
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