Inside the Jaffa Gate - February 2010
Both the Jaffa Gate and Jaffa Road are named after the port of Jaffa, from which the prophet Jonah embarked on his sea journey and pilgrims used to used on their trip to the Holy City. The “Jaffa Road” today is much smaller and refers only to the road in Jerusalem, not inside the Old City walls. Israel’s Highway 1, a new modern highway, connects Jerusalem with Tel Aviv-Jaffa.

In Arabic, the name for the gate is Bab el-Khalil, literally “Gate of the Friend,” which refers to Abraham. Since by tradition the burial site of Ibrahim/Abraham is in Hebron, called El-Khalil in Arabic, the Arabic name for the Jaffa Gate translates as "Hebron Gate.”

During medieval times, Arabs referred to this gate as the Bab Mihrab Dawud, or “Gate of David's Chamber/Sanctuary,” because they believed the room atop the Herodian tower stump represented the "prayer room" of the prophet Dawud. The biblical King David is known as the prophet Dawud in Islam.