The construction of Jerusalem’s walls took four years. The Ottoman sultan Suleiman the Magnificent decided to restore Jerusalem’s status and fortify it with a wall. From 1537 to 1541, the walls were built largely along the route of the city’s earlier walls, most of which had fallen into ruin.
Evidence of Suleiman the Magnificent’s project appears at the entrance to Jaffa Gate. An inscription in ornate Arabic script says: "In the name of Allah, the Merciful, the Compassionate, our lord the sultan, king of the Turks, Arabs and Persians, Suleiman son of Selim Khan, ordered the construction of this wall. May Allah make his work eternal."
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Relief of predatory animals on Lions’ Gate
(Photo: Moshe Milner, National Photo Collection)
Entering Jerusalem’s gates in ancient times, and one could say even today, marked a passage from the mundane to the sacred, from the field and village to the area of the Temple, and later to the surviving remnant of the wall that surrounded the compound, the Western Wall. The poet of Psalms expresses the joy of one who reached Jerusalem: "I rejoiced when they said to me, ‘Let us go to the house of the Lord.’ Our feet stood within your gates, Jerusalem."
In the days when Jerusalem was entirely enclosed by walls, passing through a gate meant entering the holy city. Even today, when passing through one of the gates connecting the new city to the Old City, the visitor, traveler or resident is stirred by emotion and sensation. Jerusalem’s sanctity hovers over the four kilometers of massive, rugged and unyielding wall.
A gate with many names
Jerusalem writer Yehuda Haezrahi wrote: "It is said that two children were standing at the entrance to Lions’ Gate. One asked the other: Why is this gate called Lions’ Gate? His friend replied: Because through this gate, the paratroopers broke into the Old City like lions."
Is that the source of the name? Certainly not. But the story itself contains the foundation of a folk legend that will surely develop over time and take an honored place among the legends of Jerusalem. So what is the true explanation for the gate’s name? Although several explanations will be offered, the decision is left to the reader.
Lions’ Gate is set into the eastern section of the wall above the valley, at the top of a steep slope. In the Middle Ages, the gate was called Jehoshaphat Gate because it faces the Valley of Jehoshaphat, where, according to tradition, the resurrection of the dead will take place and the nations of the world will stand in judgment.
Christians call it St. Stephen’s Gate, after Saint Stephen, who, according to their belief, was taken through the gate toward the Kidron Valley and stoned there.
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Lion's gate in 1937
(Ephraim Dagani, courtesy of Nadav Mann, Bitmuna; the Pritzker Family National Photography Collection, National Library of Israel)
Muslims changed the gate’s name several times. In the early period, they called it Bab al-Asbat, the Gate of the Tribes, based on their belief that through this gate the multitudes of the House of Israel would enter during pilgrimage to the Temple in Jerusalem. In the Middle Ages, it was called Jericho Gate because the road to the city of Jericho, east of Jerusalem, began there. In later periods, the name was changed again to Bab Sitt Maryam, or the Gate of Our Lady Mary, based on the Christian belief that the birthplace of Mary, the mother of Jesus, was located nearby.
Among Jews, its name was Lions’ Gate, and so it remained. The question remains: Why was the gate given this name, so different from the names assigned to it by the religions that also sanctified Jerusalem?
Lions in a dream
Anyone approaching Lions’ Gate from the east, the outer side, will immediately notice two pairs of reliefs of predatory animals carved on either side of the gate: one pair on the right and another on the left. Who carved these pairs of lions (some say they are actually leopards) and why? Was it Suleiman the Magnificent who restored and built the wall? Is this perhaps a section of an earlier wall? Or were the lions carved by someone who ruled the Land of Israel and Jerusalem in later periods? Answers to these questions can be found in folk tales that grappled with the same mysteries.
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Lions’ Gate in 1992. Who carved the pairs of lions, and why?
(Photo: Moshe Milner, National Photo Collection)
In his book "Legends of the Land of Israel," Professor Zev Vilnay recounts the legend of "Lions’ Gate and the dream of the Turkish sultan." According to the legend, the sultan had plotted evil against Jerusalem and its residents, planning to impose a heavy tax and a burden of servitude on them. One night, he had a terrifying dream in which two pairs of lions attacked him and tried to devour him.
At dawn, the sultan rushed to summon dream interpreters to explain the meaning of his dream. One old man stood up and dared to answer that the wrath of Allah, jealous and vengeful, had been directed at the sultan for plotting to harm the city and its residents. The lions, the old man said, had been sent by Allah to devour him. But if the sultan did good for the city and its residents, his sin would be atoned for and forgiven.
The sultan asked the astrologers how he could do good for Jerusalem. They replied that its wall was breached and its residents had no protection. The sultan quickly ordered the city wall to be rebuilt and restored. The two reliefs of paired lions are a testimony to the sultan’s project.
But why this gate in particular? The legend continues that the construction work was carried out by two groups of builders. One group built the southeastern, southern and southwestern sections of the wall, while the other built the northeastern, northern and northwestern sections. The starting point for both groups was Lions’ Gate, where the lion reliefs were carved, the same lions that did not devour the sultan but instead gave him the divine command to restore and build the wall around Jerusalem.
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Between Baybars and Suleiman the Magnificent. Lions’ Gate in 2000
(Photo: Amos Ben Gershom, National Photo Collection)
Another theory holds that the pairs of lions are actually the royal emblems of the Mamluk sultan Baybars, who ruled the Land of Israel in the 13th century. Evidence that these were Baybars’ symbols can be seen in additional pairs of lions carved on Baybars Bridge north of Lod, whose builder is undisputed: Sultan Baybars. This naturally raises the question of what symbols of Baybars’ 13th-century rule are doing on a wall built in the 16th century. That is a question for research, not folk tradition.
There is also a newer legend, cited by Yitzhak Navon, Israel’s fifth president, in the marvelous legend he wrote, "The Six Days and the Seven Gates." In that legend, Jerusalem’s gates argue over which of them will bring redemption.
The legend, in Navon’s words, says: "Lions’ Gate folded inward during the argument and said nothing. Hakadosh Baruch Hu said to it: 'Speak!' But it refused. He struck it with a whip until it opened its mouth and said: ‘Master of the Universe, at every moment I see from here, toward the east, the soldiers of Israel on the hills and on Mount Scopus, and at the feet of the gates, being saved by fire and falling. Let them come through whichever gate they come, so long as not one more of them falls.’
"When Hakadosh Baruch Hu, heard this, He said: 'Since you have humbled yourself, and the lives of young men are more important in your eyes than your own honor, I decree that they shall come through you. The sons of lions shall come and enter through the Lions’ Gate.' A short time had not passed before the young men of Israel broke through in armored vehicles to Lions’ Gate, and from there to the Temple Mount and the holy places of Israel."