Updated for 2026: This is still a quick, worthwhile stop in Jerusalem's Christian Quarter; allow extra time for security and expect opening times to shift around major holidays.
In ancient Jerusalem, the main gates were shut at night. Late arrivals sometimes had to use a much smaller side entrance, where guards could check who was coming in before allowing them through. It is easy to see how a passage this narrow became associated with the image of the "eye of a needle."
At the Saint Alexander Nevsky Church compound, near the so-called Threshold of the Judgment Gate, visitors are shown a small opening in the Herodian wall that local tradition connects with the Gospel line about a camel passing through the eye of a needle. Whether or not that was the original meaning of the verse, the place gives the metaphor real weight.
