In Belleville, Paris, Madame Rosa, an elderly French Jew and Holocaust survivor who worked as a prostitute, now runs a boarding home for the children of prostitutes. One of them is Momo, an Algerian boy who is believed to be 11. Although Madame Rosa is Jewish and sometimes makes racist comments about Momo, she remains aloof of the Arab-Israeli conflict and raises Momo as a Muslim in respect of his heritage, taking him to her friend Mr. Hamil for instruction in religion, French literature, and Arabic at the Grand Mosque. She is in fact concealing the fact that Momo is 14, having a strong skepticism of official papers and what they can or cannot prove, and as a result is unable to send him to a regular primary school.