The Jaffa Gate

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The Jaffa Gate

The Jaffa Gate is a stone portal in the historic walls of Jerusalem's Old City; it is one of eight gates in Jerusalem's Old City walls.

The Jaffa gate opens to a road, Jaffa Street that leads to Israel's largest city, Tel Aviv, on the coast of the Mediterranean Sea. In ancient times, that road led to the port city of Jaffa, which is now just along the southern edge of Tel Aviv.

On the Old City side of the Jaffa Gate is a small square between the Christian and Armenian Quarters. The Christian Quarter is to the north, on the left, and the Armenian Quarter is to the South, on the right. Straight ahead an Arab 'shuq' (market) runs due east along a narrow street that leads to the Muslim Quarter. The Jewish Quarter is accessed by a number of streets and alleyways running off the gate square.

Running along the high city walls just to the south of the Gate is The Citadel of Jerusalem, also referred to as the "Tower of David", a notable Jerusalem landmark that dates back to antiquity. The current tower was built during the reign of the Ottoman sultan Suleiman the Magnificent.

When German Kaiser Wilhelm II visited Jerusalem, the Turkish authorities created a gap in the city's wall, in order to allow the visitor to enter the city without dismounting his horse. The act was a symbol of friendship between the two empires. In 1917, British general Edmund Allenby entered the Old CIty through this gate, giving a speech at the nearby Tower of David. During Israel's War of Independence, Israeli forces fought hard to connect the Jewish Quarter of the Old City with western Jerusalem by controlling the Jaffa Gate. With a Jordanian victory in 1948, Israeli forces were not able to regain control of the gate until the Six Day War in 1967.

As the westernmost of the gates, it is heavily used by pedestrians and vehicles, and the plaza in front of the gate has been expanded to connect with new residential developments outside the gate.