The Jaffa Gate
Standing outside the Jaffa Gate of Jerusalem’s Old City is like facing a time tunnel. Behind you is the modern city of Jerusalem, high-rise hotels, traffic clogged streets and some classic (but decidedly 20th century) landmarks. Before you is the entrance to the ancient world. It is a time tunnel with many stations of departure. It reaches back to the First Temple Period when Kings of Judea defended the city against Empires or to the Roman era when the megalomaniac King Herod built the three enormous towers, (now known erroneously as David’s Citadel) that loom above you. From here one can imagine the 11th century Crusader Invasion when glory-starved Christian armies of Western Europe massacred every Jew, every Moslem and every Christian who didn’t make it out of the city alive. Ultimately, the Jaffa Gate transports us to the reign of the Ottoman Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent who built the present day walls of the Old City nearly five centuries ago. The Jaffa Gate was one of the crowning jewels of this wondrous feat of architecture; the only fully surviving medieval walled city left in the Western World.
Disregarding the gaping vehicle passage immediately to the south of the gate, opened for the entrance of Kaiser Wilhelm in 1898, the Jaffa Gate has never been merely a physical doorway. To every visitor in every generation, its details have spoken volumes. A Jewish pilgrim, for example, would notice the enormous mezuzah, bearing the scriptural commandment to bind the words “upon the doorposts of your house and upon your gates.” A Moslem would solemnly read the 500 year old Ottoman inscription mentioning Ibrahim (Abraham) “the friend of Allah” linking the gate to it’s Arabic name, “Bab el Halil” (The Gate of the Friend). An invader of any era would pay careful attention to the slits for archers, the crenellated ramparts for guns and the awkward set of 90 degree angles required to break through into the city, enough to slow down any foe. And, of course, the merchant of any century would delight at the commercial thoroughfare that welcomes one immediately upon entry.
The casual traveler can easily walk through the Jaffa Gate as though it is simply something that provides access to the Old City. But it tells a story worth a long, long listen. I pause here often to read the 132nd psalm:
I rejoiced when they said to me, “Let us go to the house of the Lord." And now our feet are standing within your gates, Jerusalem. Jerusalem, built as a city, walled round about. Here the tribes have come, the tribes of the Lord, As it was decreed for Israel, to give thanks to the name of the Lord. Here are the thrones of justice, the thrones of the house of David. For the peace of Jerusalem pray: "May those who love you prosper! May peace be within your ramparts, prosperity within your towers." For family and friends I say, "May peace be yours." For the house of the Lord, our God, I pray, "May blessings be yours."
I
Disregarding the gaping vehicle passage immediately to the south of the gate, opened for the entrance of Kaiser Wilhelm in 1898, the Jaffa Gate has never been merely a physical doorway. To every visitor in every generation, its details have spoken volumes. A Jewish pilgrim, for example, would notice the enormous mezuzah, bearing the scriptural commandment to bind the words “upon the doorposts of your house and upon your gates.” A Moslem would solemnly read the 500 year old Ottoman inscription mentioning Ibrahim (Abraham) “the friend of Allah” linking the gate to it’s Arabic name, “Bab el Halil” (The Gate of the Friend). An invader of any era would pay careful attention to the slits for archers, the crenellated ramparts for guns and the awkward set of 90 degree angles required to break through into the city, enough to slow down any foe. And, of course, the merchant of any century would delight at the commercial thoroughfare that welcomes one immediately upon entry.
The casual traveler can easily walk through the Jaffa Gate as though it is simply something that provides access to the Old City. But it tells a story worth a long, long listen. I pause here often to read the 132nd psalm:
I rejoiced when they said to me, “Let us go to the house of the Lord." And now our feet are standing within your gates, Jerusalem. Jerusalem, built as a city, walled round about. Here the tribes have come, the tribes of the Lord, As it was decreed for Israel, to give thanks to the name of the Lord. Here are the thrones of justice, the thrones of the house of David. For the peace of Jerusalem pray: "May those who love you prosper! May peace be within your ramparts, prosperity within your towers." For family and friends I say, "May peace be yours." For the house of the Lord, our God, I pray, "May blessings be yours."
I
