The Mamad (Protected Space)
The Mamad is a fortified room found in every Israeli family's apartment that was built in Israel starting in the 1990s.
The Mamad is part of the "Protected Space" family scattered all over Israel. It has an older, veteran brother called a "Miklat" (shelter), and a little sister called a "Migunit" (small, portable shelter). This whole family, made of reinforced concrete, is part of the fabric of Israeli life. Just as there are public restrooms and services everywhere, there are these small or large protective units that have helped Israelis cope with existential security threats for 75 years.
So, ladies and gentlemen…
Meet the "Merchav Mugan Dirati" (Apartment Protected Space), or by its well-known name, the "Mamad" – a unique lifestyle with no equal anywhere else in the world. Only we have it.
The Mamad room is built for security and protection from conventional and unconventional weapons. And this is what it is: Walls of extra-thick reinforced concrete, and strict standards for doors and windows, ventilation openings, lighting, and internal equipment. Its size is at least 9 square meters, and the final approval of its compliance with standards comes from the IDF Home Front Command.
No contractor in Israel will receive final approval for a residential building they’ve constructed if every single apartment, without exception, does not have a Mamad as required by law.
The Mamad reminds every Israeli family that security readiness is an inherent part of the daily routine for Israeli citizens. We are within it 24 hours a day, seven days a week – a rocket or missile of any known type could be launched here at any moment: Kassam, Shihab, Scud, drone, ballistic missile, and even a dirty bomb made of chemical or biological materials. With a bit of bad luck, the rocket or its shrapnel will land on or very close to the house. Even fragments from a terror attack on the street can mistakenly enter the living room.
A protected space isn't just a part of the residence.
In every structure in the country – an office building, factory, or hotel – it is mandatory to build a public protected space where everyone present can take refuge during a hostile moment when there is an alert for bombing or firing.
Here is the Mamad in a graphic diagram:
This is the Mamad, the apartment protected space—the security room of an average Israeli family. The terms in the image are in Hebrew. Here is the translation: On the right: 25 cm thick reinforced concrete exterior walls, 20 cm thick reinforced concrete interior walls, a gas and blast-resistant window. On the left: Reinforcing bars, a filter against chemical and biological warfare, 2 cm thick acrylic plaster, a gas and blast-resistant door.
The Mamad in the family apartment tries to integrate with the other rooms of the house, but doesn't quite succeed.
It's not a very comfortable room and goes against all architectural aesthetics. It has a bulky steel door and heavy metal windows that perpetually collect dust. Its walls are extra thick—therefore, the room is very hot in the summer and very cold in the winter. Cell phone reception can get messed up in it, as can the radio, Bluetooth, and the home internet network. To hang a picture on the wall or attach furniture to it, you need a handyman with heavier-than-usual tools.
And yet, despite its drawbacks, no Israeli citizen living here would give it up.
Not just because it's a legal requirement, but also, and mainly, because the Mamad calms a deep-seated fear that resides in the hearts of Israeli citizens – the fear of being harmed in one of our endless rounds of fighting with our enemies all around us.
Israelis who build a private house on their own plot of land can manage with a more comfortable protected space with a few less disadvantages. They soothe their fears with a large and spacious basement, equipped with sophisticated protective measures and advanced communication equipment. The especially paranoid ones make sure to stock an atomic shelter, in fear of doomsday.
Outside the home where it exists, the Mamad has an older, veteran brother called a "Miklat," (shelter) and sometimes also a public shelter, which hosts citizens living in old residential buildings built before every building was required to have a Mamad.
And it has a little sister called a "Migunit," which is a small structure the size of a room, also built for maximum protection. The Migunits are scattered in every local authority for the benefit of anyone caught in a bombardment while on the move.
Together, the three of them make up the Israeli "Protected Space" family, which exists in every built area and is an inseparable part of the Israeli landscape, just like a public park, traffic lights, trash rooms, or pedestrian bridges.
Mamad at home
On the left: a regular room. On the right: the Mamad room.
A stranger wouldn't understand this.
Not even the Swiss, our only competitors in the field of civil defense.
Although their shelters are built to a very high standard and can withstand a nuclear, chemical, or biological attack, they are still underground units shared by all the building's residents.
We don't settle for just going down to a communal shelter; we attach it to the citizen. In their own apartment. And that's a unique Israeli style that has no equal, not even in Switzerland, the only other country in the world that thinks like us about protection as a part of life.
These are the facts of life here in Israel as of 2023, and it doesn't look like that's going to change anytime soon.
The wars in the region don't cease, and weapons are becoming more and more sophisticated and threatening. And until peace comes upon us and our neighbors, we will have to continue living by law, with the Mamad, as if that is how we are destined to live.
Update from 2025:
Since this chapter was written, on the state’s 75th anniversary, Israel has experienced its most traumatic war yet.
During it, Israeli citizens endured massive assaults of sophisticated rockets and long-range ballistic missiles that came from Gaza, Lebanon, and Iran. For many months, Israeli citizens absorbed one barrage after another from different directions. These attacks sowed destruction throughout the entire Israeli home front, from Eilat in the south to the Golan Heights in the north.
This was the great opportunity for the protected spaces to meet the expectations placed upon them. And they did not disappoint. It seems as if the Mamadim had been waiting 75 years for these moments to prove their effectiveness—and they saved many from certain death. Israeli citizens also met the expectations they had of themselves and the state—at the sound of the sirens, everyone ran to the protected spaces and was saved. Only a handful of people were killed in the bombardments, mainly those who were not in a protected space and were killed by blast and shrapnel, or in two exceptional events, when a missile exploded directly on the protected space. A rare event in which even a Mamad cannot save. Ultimately, the war proved that the Israeli home front remained stable and survived the attacks, thanks to the combination of an available protected space, together with the civil discipline that is ingrained in the consciousness of Israeli citizens.
A building in Haifa that was renovated and had apartment-protected spaces added to both sides.
You can see the iron windows at the front of each Mamad and the protected ventilation openings on the left side.
Historical Bits
The concept of a protected space on the Israeli home front has existed for a long time, from the very first years of the state.
The State of Israel was established in the midst of a war and bombardments on villages and towns, and already in the first Israeli government, established in 1949, it was decided to create a national civil defense system, called HAGA (Civil Defense). This was based on the assumption that there would be no peace here, and that we would live by the sword for many more years.
David Ben-Gurion, Israel's first prime minister, coined the phrase: "The whole nation is an army; the whole land is a front."
Since then, this understanding has accompanied Israeli citizens for 75 years, finding its tangible expression in the sirens that send them running to their protected spaces.
The protected space has undergone changes throughout the State of Israel's existence.
In the early 1950s, the Knesset enacted the "Civil Defense Law," which stipulated that every residential building would have one shelter for all residents. The standard shelter of those days was built as a basement, below the ground level of the building, and was intended to serve all its residents in times of war. Those who did not have a shelter were supposed to run to public shelters that were built in every local authority.
The shelters provided a conceptual sense of security, but since the law was enacted, they have been used infrequently.
For over forty years, Israeli citizens experienced small and large wars that did not have a significant impact on the Israeli home front, such as: the Sinai Campaign, the Six-Day War, the Yom Kippur War, and the Lebanon War. These were conducted in enemy territories or along the borders. Only villages and towns near the border fence absorbed bombardments, and their residents had to enter shelters from time to time, during large and small rounds of low-intensity fighting.
The IDF's response to security threats in these areas provided more security than any shelter.
The army, which was established to protect Israeli citizens, proved itself and won all the wars against our enemies from neighboring countries. In most parts of the country, the private and public shelters were not really functional and lost their original value.
And so, when the Israeli home front was considered safe and protected from bombings, the shelters in the shared residential buildings were neglected and used for storing items, smoking drugs, and a variety of other uses and phenomena that were not exactly legal. In many local authorities and educational institutions, public shelters were converted for cultural activities, synagogues, archives, or any other activity where the protected and unused rooms could be utilized.
And then came the 1990s.
From the east, thousands of kilometers away from the country, a security threat emerged that we had not known, and it threatened the Israeli home front: long-range missiles from an enemy country with no border with us.
The threat materialized in 1991 during the "First Gulf War"—Scud missiles were sent from distant Iraq toward the center of the country and caused direct hits on residential areas.
The destruction the missiles sowed, as well as the dead and wounded, could be contained. Israelis are, after all, a people who have been through several wars and many terror attacks.
What really frightened Israelis was the fear expressed by official sources that some of the Iraqi missiles carried a chemical or biological warhead - A threat of unconventional weapons changes the rules of the deadly game, takes the home front to completely different places, and raised the level of fear to heights we had not known.
Millions of Israelis spent the days of the 'First Gulf War' and the missiles that landed here in fear, almost in paralysis, as they were glued to their gas masks for many weeks.
Immediately after the end of the war, a new thought process was conducted on how all citizens, and especially the Israeli home front, were protected from long-range weapons.
Following the missile fire from Iraq, the Israeli government decided that public shelters no longer met all the security threats and there was no choice but to upgrade the protected space and bring it to every apartment in Israel.
This is how the Mamad came into being. And since then, it has been with us, in every apartment, in every house, and in every space.
And this is perhaps one of the other things that only we Israelis have, and no other nation in the entire world.
This is part of "The Israeli Story 1948-2025" project.
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