subject: Jaffa Gate in Jerusalem [print this page] Jaffa Gate in Jerusalem Jaffa Gate in Jerusalem
Jaffa Gate (Sha'ar Yafo) with the rest of the walls and gates of Jerusalem was built by Sultan Suleiman I The Magnificent (Kanuni) in 1538. In the past, roads led from this gate to the port city of Jaffa (which was the reason for its Hebrew name), and the Gates were among the most important fortifications in the city. In Arabic, the name of the Jaffa Gate is pronounced like "Bab al-Khalil", i.e. "Hebron Gate", because, in fact, it also led to the city of Hebron. Here we should clarify that the translation from Arabic of the word "al-Khalil" would be "friend", referring to Abraham, the first of the three Patriarchs and father of the Jewish people. In this context, Abraham received the status of "Friend of God", and he was buried in Hebron, a city named in his honor; in Hebrew the word 'Hebron' correlates with the concepts of "friend", "comrade", "fellow", etc. It is also worth noting that Abraham (Ibrahim), who is also the ancestor of Arabs and Arameans, was the father of Yitzhak (Isaac) and Ishmael (Ismael) and the grandfather of James (Jacob) and Esau, the patriarchs of various civilizations and peoples.Above the gate there is an inscription in Arabic immortalizing the date of their construction and the name of the sultan. At the right part of the gate you can notice a wide opening in the wall done in 1898 in connection with the historic visit to Jerusalem of the Emperor of Germany and King of Prussia, Wilhelm II. The Kaiser, with his entourage and wife, expressed a desire to enter the city in their huge horse-drawn carriages, and the medieval gate was, to put it mildly, a bit narrow for such an exercise. So, a part of the wall was sacrificed to a triumphal entry into the city of the descendant of German crusaders.After passing through the Jaffa Gate, a few meters to the left we see a small shaded area with two tombstones. These two graves, as the legend goes, were of two main architects of Sultan Suleiman I, who did the design of all city walls. In line with the 'nice' ancient tradition, Suleiman ordered to execute the two architects. In order to find an explanation for this, let us look at two existing possible reasons why he did so. According to the first version, it was a punishment for the blunder the architects made by failing to include the Mount of Zion in their project (located on the south of the Old City of Jerusalem) thereby leaving it outside the fortifications. The second version is that Suleiman just wanted to make sure that nowhere, never and nobody would be able to construct a wall so stunning as in Jerusalem...The square itself, which is surrounding the tombs of the Sultan's designers, is named after Umar ibn al-Khattab, the Muslim Caliph, who conquered in 637 the whole territory of present Israel.From here, we can walk along the street leading to the south of the Armenian Patriarchate (Rehov a-ha- Patriarchia ha-Armenit). On the right hand we would have a perfectly view of the famous Citadel Tower of David. The Tower of David houses a Museum, its exhibits show clearly and in chronological order more than 3000 years of Jerusalem's history. If time permits, we strongly recommend to visit the Citadel and the museum (entrance fee), which helps understand and deeply feel the rich history of Jerusalem.
