Jaffa Gate has always been one of the most important if not the most important gate of the Old City. From Jaffa Gate, the roads led to Jaffa and Hebron. The road towards west passed through Jaffa Street, which is one of the main streets in Jerusalem and was the main way to the city of Jaffa that served as the main port city of Israel until the early 20th century.
The entrance gate is a metal-coated wooden gate, with the entrance decorated with Ottoman reliefs. Above the entrance you can see the name of Suleiman the Magnificent, the wall builder. The wall construction lasted from 1535 to 1541, while the gatehouse was built in 1536 in parallel to the construction of the wall.
The Jaffa Gate was preceded by a gate called the David Gate in the Crusader period, which was built east of here yet very close to the current gate. It is worth referring to the map of Cambrai from the 12th century, where you can see the citadel named Porta David, and a gate adjacent to it, which means that back in the Crusader period there was a gate here named David's Gate. According to the map, the street name from this gate is Via David, and if we walk towards the market, you can see the current name is also David, meaning that at least during the last 800 years the street name has not changed.
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Yehuda Holtzman

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