The cable car Museum mount Zion is very small, just tiny. But it is worth visiting – it tells the amazing episode of the Arab-Israeli war of 1948.

There is a Museum in the North wing of the hotel "Mount Zion" on the Hebron road. The building was built for charity eye hospital in the last quarter of the nineteenth century Hospitaller and military Order of St. John of Jerusalem. The coats of arms of the knights are still preserved on the old walls.

During the First world war the hospital closed. The building was used by the Turkish army as an ammunition dump, was damaged. When the UK received a mandate to govern Palestine, the hospital resumed work, it was renovated and expanded. Architect Clifford Holliday has built two new wings, separated by a street and connected by an underground tunnel (it was used not only as a transition, but also for cold storage of drugs).

After the war and the armistice between Israel and Jordan, the hospital caught on neutral territory, had to move. Now here is a hotel, a house across the street is a busy center for the arts and crafts of the Jerusalem house of quality", the tunnel is closed. But in the wing, opposite the arts centre, is a Museum – because it was there was one of the points of the cable car of mount Zion.

In 1948 heated battles blazed around the Old city – a strategic and spiritual center of Jerusalem. Israeli forces, who focused on mount Zion, from-for continuous attacks from the Arab side were cut off from the Western parts of the city. There was a tunnel, but to continually send down wounded, and the top of fresh forces and ammunition he was too narrow.

In December 1948, the commander of the engineering corps Uriel Hefetz proposed solution: the cable car! Steel cable 200 meters in length stretched from Israeli positions in Zion through the Hinnom valley to the hospital of the Hospitaller. The maximum height of the rope reached 50 meters. Trolley to carry the load no more than 250 pounds, crossed the valley for 2 minutes. Each of the two "stations" were served by a team of three soldiers, twist the winch. The cable car to work only at night, during the day the rope was lowered to the ground, and for six months the enemy never knew about this secret communication channel.

To declassify it did not and after the armistice because the Old city until 1967 remained in the hands of the Jordanians. The secret of the cableway of mount Zion was discovered only in 1972. In memory of all operations lane in the new Jerusalem is called the Nativ Hartwell ("the Path of the cable car").

In the Museum are those winches – where they were during the war. Restored rope out the window, behind which hangs badly rusted trolley. (The rope is always raised, it can be clearly seen above the valley of Hinnom.) You can examine the documents and photographs of that time – soldiers, officers and Uriel Hafiza, modest guy in glasses. In 1974 Hafez being a civilian was seriously wounded while trying to rescue children from terrorists and remained confined to a wheelchair.