Cable Car Museum, Mount Zion is very small, simply tiny. But it is worth a visit - he talks about the amazing episode of the Arab-Israeli war of 1948.

It is a museum in the northern wing of the hotel "Mount Zion" on the Hebron road. The building was built for charitable ophthalmic hospital in the last quarter of the XIX century the Hospitallers - knightly Order of St. John of Jerusalem. Coats of arms of the Knights are still preserved in the ancient walls.

During the First World hospital is closed. The building used by the Turkish army as an ammunition depot, was damaged. When Britain received the mandate over Palestine, the hospital reopened, it was repaired and expanded. Architect Clifford Holliday built two new wings, separated by a street and connected by underground tunnel (it was used not only as a transition, but also for the cold storage of medicines).

After the war and the armistice between Israel and Jordan Hospital, which happened in a neutral territory, had to move. Now here is a hotel, a house across the street is busy center of arts and crafts "Jerusalem House of Quality", the tunnel is closed. A wing, opposite the arts center, a museum - because that is where there was one of the points of the cable car Mount Zion.

In 1948, the hottest battles blazed around the Old City - a strategic and spiritual center of Jerusalem. Israeli forces, to focus on Mount Zion, because of the constant attacks on the Arab side were cut off from the western areas of the city. There was a tunnel, but for the constant sending down injured and up - fresh troops and ammunition, he was too narrow.

In December 1948, the commander of the engineering corps Uriel Hefetz proposed a solution: the cable car! Steel cable 200 meters long stretched from Israeli positions in Zion through the valley of Hinnom to the hospital, the Hospital. The maximum height of the cable up to 50 meters. Trolleys, lift the load no more than 250 kilograms, crossed the valley in 2 minutes. Each of the two "stations" serves the team of three soldiers, steep winch. Cableway worked only at night, during the day the cable was lowered to the ground, and the enemy for six months and did not know about this secret channel of communication.

It did not declassify and after the armistice - in fact the old town until 1967 remained in the hands of the Jordanians. The secret cable car Mount Zion was discovered only in 1972. In memory lane about the operation in the new Jerusalem, called Nativ HaRakevel ("The Way of the cable car").

In the museum are the very winches - the same place where they were during the war. Recycled the cable goes out the window, which was hanging badly rusted truck. (The cable is always raised, its clearly visible over the valley of Hinnom.) You can study the documents and photographs of that time - mechanisms, soldiers and officers of Uriel Hefetz, humble guy with glasses. In 1974 Hefetz, already a civilian, was seriously injured while trying to save the children from terrorists and always remained confined to a wheelchair.