History
Located in the south of the Old City, facing Mount Zion and Hebron, the Zion Gate leads into the Armenian and Jewish Quarters. Zion Gate is also known as David's Gate (Arabic: Bab el-Daoud‎; Hebrew: Shaar David), because the tomb of King David is believed to be on Mt. Zion. The gate was built for Suleiman the Magnificent in 1540. In the 19th century, an area close to the gate was the gathering place of lepers.
In the 1948 Arab-Israeli War, the Palmach gained control of the Jewish Quarter via the Zion Gate. The stones surrounding the gate were pockmarked by weapons fire and bullet holes that are still visible today. The last British troops leaving Jerusalem on May 13, 1948, presented Mordechai Weingarten with the key to the gate. The gate was under the rule of Jordan until the Six-Day War.
Both pedestrians and vehicles use the gate, although maneuvering is difficult due to the L-shaped passageway. Until recently, there was two-way vehicular traffic passing through the gate. Today cars can exit but not enter the Old City via this gate.
Read more about this topic: Zion Gate
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“I think that Richard Nixon will go down in history as a true folk hero, who struck a vital blow to the whole diseased concept of the revered image and gave the American virtue of irreverence and skepticism back to the people.”
—William Burroughs (b. 1914)
“One classic American landscape haunts all of American literature. It is a picture of Eden, perceived at the instant of history when corruption has just begun to set in. The serpent has shown his scaly head in the undergrowth. The apple gleams on the tree. The old drama of the Fall is ready to start all over again.”
—Jonathan Raban (b. 1942)
“Anyone who is practically acquainted with scientific work is aware that those who refuse to go beyond fact rarely get as far as fact; and anyone who has studied the history of science knows that almost every great step therein has been made by the “anticipation of Nature.””
—Thomas Henry Huxley (1825–95)