NEWS FROM ANDREW HAINES

Volunteer at the Garden Tomb, Jerusalem

Jerusalem 30-10-2019

Dear All,

Last year I did something different with one of the Newsletters. I described a walk around

the block in our area of east Jerusalem, and it seemed to draw a lot of comment. I thought

I would do something similar again, only on a rather larger scale; a walk around the outside

of the Old City, and concentrating especially on the Gates to the city.

Jerusalem is a city divided in many ways. There is the well-publicised division between Jew

and Palestinian. There is the division between the Old City and the new Jerusalem built

outside the city walls. 'New' Jerusalem is broadly divided into Jewish areas to the south and

west of the Old City, and Palestinian areas to the north and east, although an increasing

number of Jewish settlements are now popping up in the northern suburbs. The Old City

itself is divided into four unequal quarters: Jewish, Muslim, Christian and Armenian. Why

the city is divided into three 'faith' areas and one national group is a long story in itself, and

would take another letter to begin to describe the reasons. Although we hear much in the

news about the problems that arise because of the national/faith divisions, there are also

many initiatives that seek to work across the divides, and these are rarely reported.

Publicity can sometimes hinder, rather than help, the work of reconciliation.

The Old City is roughly square-shaped, and just over half a mile across in each direction -

north-south and east-west. A walk around the perimeter is not just the sum of the four

sides because the road does not always stay close to the walls, so the whole circuit must be

about three miles, plus a bit extra to get from my starting point to the walls. It is strenuous

walking in places because the road rises and falls sharply along the contours of the hills

outside the city, from the low point of the Kidron valley to the heights of Mount Zion. The

line of the walls today was defined in the sixteenth century, when they were built/rebuilt

by the ruling Sultan Suleiman between 1537 and 1541. In earlier centuries the Old City

covered a smaller area. There is still some argument about where the walls were in Biblical

times, but the question is slowly being resolved by continuing excavations and research.

Outline plan of the Old City

My walk starts at Damascus Gate, one of the

largest and busiest of the eight gates to the Old

City. It is an imposing structure in the middle of

the northern section of the walls, and as its

name implies, led out onto the road to

Damascus. Nowadays the road north is renamed

Nablus Road. No-one going to Damascus would

use this route now, if indeed anyone would want

to go there at all at the moment. Even Nablus is

not a welcoming place for Jews. Damascus Gate is built on top of an earlier Roman gate,

the remains of which are still visible underneath and to the side. It is possible to go down

into the excavations underneath, and this remains on my to-do list. Normally there is a

happy flow of people walking in and out of the city through the gate. However, there are

times when it is extremely crowded. The crush can be such that your feet are lifted off the

ground and you are carried through by the crowd. We know this to be true because we

have experienced it. It is not a straight-through passage, but the path turns at right-angles

left then right. The inside of the gate is lined with small stalls selling all sorts of stuff, and

the path is often restricted by elderly Palestinian ladies sitting on the ground surrounded by

boxes of fruit and herbs for sale. Sometimes their produce looks better than what you see

in the regular greengrocers.

Damascus Gate is also the main route into the Old City for Muslims going to pray at the

mosques on Temple Mount every Friday, and for many Jews heading to the Western Wall

for their prayers on Friday evening/Saturday. It is on Fridays that tensions can run higher

than at other times, and Damascus Gate is no stranger to violence. It is usually directed

against the police/military by disaffected Palestinian youths, and justice/retribution is

usually immediate and decisive.

Damascus Gate is the only one of the entrances to the Old City that still has gates of any

antiquity, and they are massive. Huge vertical wooden beams are faced with wooden

planks, and they in turn are faced with thick sheets of iron.

From Damascus Gate it is a short walk uphill in an easterly direction to:

Herod's Gate, which gives access to the Muslim

Quarter of the Old City. It has nothing to do with

King Herod, except for a dodgy tradition that

says his palace was nearby. We have walked in

through this gate, but it leads into a maze of

narrow alleyways which are generally fairly

squalid, and where it is easy to get temporarily

lost. Generally there is no need for us to do it, so

we don't. The Arabic name for the gate is Bab-az-zahra, after the Arab neighbourhood built

to the north outside the walls. The gate is of fairly recent origin, opened up through a

tower in the walls in 1875 because of the growth of the population outside the walls.

Before that there had been a wicket gate in the left-hand side of the tower providing only

limited pedestrian access in and out of the Old City. Tradition has it that this was locked

shut more than it was open. The Jewish name for this gate translates as 'Flower Gate'. The

only possible explanation for this must be the rosette carved in the stonework above the

arch. From Damascus Gate to Herod's Gate the walls are built on the foundations of the

walls from Biblical times. From Herod's Gate the road runs to the north-east corner of the

walls. Turning south it is possible to follow the road steeply down, and away from the

walls, towards the Kidron valley and then up again. The easy way is to follow the footpath

that hugs the walls and is relatively level to:

Lion Gate, which is the only access to the Old

City from the east. It is the gate used by

Christian pilgrims following in the footsteps of

Jesus down the Mount of Olives and into the city.

The name comes from the four lions carved into

the stonework, or quite possibly incorporated

from an earlier structure. The story is that the

Sultan Suleiman had a dream about being eaten

by lions. He would be spared only if he built

walls all around Jerusalem, so that is what he did. The lions were incorporated in this gate

and then became the symbol of Jerusalem. The gate is also sometimes known as St.

Stephen's Gate, obviously in remembrance of the first Christian martyr, but there are no

known connections between him and this gate except that he may have sometimes gone

through the gate that preceded it. His main memorial is the Basilica and Biblical Library

which is our next-door neighbour in Nablus Road.

You have to walk down from Lion Gate back to the main road and turn south, down then up

to a long level section of road below the walls, where the land has been terraced to be

usable for agriculture - mainly olive trees. On the way you pass the:

Golden Gate, or Gate of Mercy. This is the only

gate that ever gave access direct onto Temple

Mount from the east, and is probably the

entrance that Jesus would have used. It has not

done so for at least 500 years, as it was bricked up

by Sultan Suleiman, or maybe even earlier -

nobody can be sure. It is the gate through which

the Jews believe that their Messiah, when he

comes, will enter the city. Perhaps it was in order to prevent this that the Muslim rulers

bricked up the entrance centuries ago. To make doubly sure that he doesn't come this way

, they have, in latter years, put a large cemetery right in front of the gate, on the basis that

no self-respecting Jew will enter a cemetery without proper cause, least of all a Muslim

one. All these shenanigans would have been unnecessary if both sides recognised their

true Messiah. It is not possible to get near this gate, even from the inside. Although it is

part of the walls along the edge of Temple Mount, it is fenced off and patrolled by fierce

Muslim guards.

Continuing along the road past the Golden Gate, at the south-eastern corner of the walls

the road turn and climbs again to:

Dung Gate, which is the first of two gate on the

southern section of the walls. It is the only gate

into the Old City that provides access for buses.

There is a turning area just inside, where local

buses deliver and collect a regular steam of

visitors. It is also the gate that is nearest to the

Western Wall, so how did it get its name? The

Hebrew name for this gate translates as 'Garbage

Gate', and the original gate, a little further along

the walls, was for just that. It was used for carrying out the refuse from the Temple. This

refuse was basically butchers waste, from the vast numbers of animals sacrificed in the

Temple. It was all taken out to be burned in the Hinnom Valley. The Hinnom Valley came

to be a synonym for hell because it is said that the fires were always burning. Dung Gate in

its original, 16th century, form was much narrower than it is now. It was widened as

recently as 1952, when Jerusalem was under Jordanian control (1948-67). It is also known

as Silwan Gate, after the neighbourhood which adjoins it to the south, and which is the site

of the original City of David.

From Dung Gate it is a sharp climb uphill. The road veers away to the left, round the

contours of Mount Zion, but there is a stepped path up along the edge of the walls to:

Zion Gate, which, as it name suggests, leads out

from the Old City onto the plateau of Mount Zion,

and on the inside gives access to the Jewish and

Armenian Quarters. In its present position, it is a

bit further west than the original gate. It is in a

tower set at an angle to the main wall, and the

way through turns 90 degrees inside the tower, to

slow down unwelcome visitors. The whole

structure shows signs of heavy fortification. It was a battle ground in the Jewish Way of

Independence (1948) and the 6-day war (1967), and the walls are heavily pock-marked as a

result of gun-fire. Between 1948 and 1967, while the Old City was under Jordanian control,

this gate was sealed, and there was no movement in either direction. It is possible, and

permissible, to drive a car through today, but only with care round the angles to avoid

scratching from the unforgiving stones. On Mount Zion, outside the gate there a several

sites of Jewish and Christian significance - or not, depending on whether you believe the

traditions. For Jews, this is believed to be the burial place of King David. The cemetery

here is certainly the place where Schindler - the man who had a list - is buried. Then there

is the upper room, where Jesus is said to have eaten that last supper with the disciples. It is

situated on the top floor of a building that dates only from Crusader times. Never mind;

the tourists still flock there. I looked in while I was on my jaunt around, and it was

absolutely packed, like Damascus Gate at rush hour. It was also badly in need of a

deodorant. Then there is Dormition Abbey, the place where Mary, the mother of Jesus, is

said to have fallen into a coma before dying. It may be a monument to Mary, but it is also a

monument to 19th century imperial German arrogance. The site was gifted to the German

Kaiser Wilhelm II by the Muslim authorities, and the Germans erected this monument on it.

It is half church/half fortress. It does, however, have a nice coffee shop.

From here it would be a long and hilly way back to the road to continue the route. Instead,

there is a little-used footpath that holds closely to the walls, and leads eventually, with only

a little bit of down and up, to:

Jaffa Gate, the other big one (with Damascus

Gate). As its name suggests, it was the gate that

led out onto the road to Jaffa, for centuries the

main sea-port for the country. It is now only

used by pleasure craft and a small fishing fleet.

The main shipping centres are Ashdod in the

south and Haifa in the north. Jaffa itself is now

surrounded by the suburbs of Tel Aviv, a city that

did not exist just over a hundred years ago, but is

now a massive sprawl that looks like any high-rise city anywhere. The actual gate has an L-

shaped pedestrian entrance, again to slow down unwelcome intruders, as at Zion Gate. It

also has a number of decorative motifs and Arabic text plaques carved into the stonework.

Adjacent to the gate is a gap in the wall, which now serves as an entry point for cars. This is

not how Suleiman intended it in the 16th century. A section of the wall was demolished in

1898 by the then Muslim authorities in readiness for the state visit of the German emperor,

Kaiser Wilhelm II ('Kaiser Bill'). His vanity was such that he refused to dismount from his

carriage and enter the Old City on foot through the gate, and so a section of wall was

demolished to enable him to ride in, in full pomp and majesty. There is also a suggestion,

unverified, that he was afraid of snipers hiding inside the gate and taking a pot at him.

Nineteen years later, when the Ottoman authorities surrendered Jerusalem to the British

towards the end of World War 1, the commander of the British forces, General Allenby,

made a point of getting off his horse outside the gate and walking through the gate into the

city.

From Jaffa Gate a broad, often crowded, pavement leads uphill and northwards to the

north-western corner of the walls. Turning right alongside the northern section leads very

quickly to:

New Gate. This is just what it says it is, although

perhaps the newness is now beginning to wear

off. It has just undergone a major restoration

project. It was only created in 1889, as a result

of pleas from the French Consul in Jerusalem,

and might just have something to do with the

fact that the French had just completed the

building of a huge monastery and pilgrim guest-

house just over the road outside the walls. To be

fair, they were not the only ones beginning to create new communities outside the walls,

and the new gate served several emerging communities, or 'compounds', not least of which

was the Russian one. The Gate now represent the most convenient access into the Old City

from the main shopping and commercial areas of new Jerusalem. It also happens to be the

highest point of the whole circuit of the walls, at 2600 feet above sea level.

From here it is a downhill walk back to where the walk started at Damascus Gate. The

reverse walk, up this hill, is the gauge by which we measure our fitness. If we can walk

from Damascus Gate up to New Gate without stopping for breath we are doing well. I have

just done it, quite briskly, but I did stop for a moment just past New Gate.

From Damascus Gate it is only a short distance up Nablus Road back to base, and a cup of

tea.

If you have managed to read to the end of this, you probably deserve one too.

Every blessing,

Andrew