The Mamad (Protected Space)
The Mamad (short for Merkhav Mugan Dirati, Hebrew for "Apartment Protected Space") is a security room found in every Israeli apartment and in every building constructed in Israel since the 1990s. Since then, it has become an integral part of life in our country, which has faced existential threats for 75 years.
Ladies and gentlemen, allow me to introduce the Apartment Protected Space, or as it's commonly known, the "Mamad" – a unique lifestyle feature found nowhere else in the world. It's truly ours alone.
The Mamad room is built for security and protection against both conventional and unconventional weapons. It features specially thick reinforced concrete walls and adheres to strict standards for doors, windows, ventilation openings, lighting, and internal equipment. It measures at least 9 square meters, and its compliance with standards is ultimately approved by the IDF Home Front Command. No contractor will receive final approval for a building without the required Mamads, or if they don't meet the rigorous standards.
The Mamad serves as a constant reminder to every Israeli family that security is an inherent part of daily life for Israeli citizens. We live with this reality 24/7. At any moment, rockets or missiles of various known types – Qassam, Shahab, Scud, drones, ballistic missiles, and even dirty bombs with chemical or biological agents – can be launched our way. If luck isn't on our side, a rocket or its debris could land directly on or very close to a home. Even shrapnel from a terrorist attack on the street could accidentally enter a living room.
The protected space isn't just part of our homes.
In every building in Israel – whether an office building, industrial facility, or hotel – it's mandatory to construct a public protected space where everyone present can take shelter during a hostile moment when an alert for bombing or missile fire is issued.
Here's the Mamad in a graphic diagram:
This is the Mamad, the Apartment Protected Space, the security room of an average Israeli family.
The Mamad attempts to blend in with other rooms in the house, but it doesn't quite succeed. It's not the most comfortable room and defies architectural aesthetics. It has a bulky steel door and heavy metal windows that constantly collect dust. The room is very hot in summer and very cold in winter. Cell phone reception can be disrupted inside, as can radio, Bluetooth, and the home internet network. To hang a picture on the wall or attach furniture, it requires the work of a handyman with heavier-than-usual tools.
And yet, despite its drawbacks, no Israeli citizen living here would ever give it up. Not only because it's legally mandated, but also, and primarily, because the Mamad soothes a deep-seated fear that resides in the hearts of Israeli citizens – the fear of being harmed in one of our endless cycles of conflict with our surrounding enemies.
Israelis building private homes can arrange for a more comfortable protected space, with fewer disadvantages. They calm their fears in a large, spacious basement, equipped with sophisticated protective measures and advanced communication equipment. Particularly paranoid individuals ensure they are equipped with an atomic shelter, for fear of a doomsday scenario.
A foreigner wouldn't understand this. Not even the Swiss, our only competitors in the field of protection. Switzerland is renowned for its impressive network of shelters, built primarily out of fear of nuclear war during the Cold War. Swiss law mandates that every citizen has a place in a shelter. This means almost every resident has access to a well-protected shelter that can provide safety in an emergency.
Although their shelters are built to a very high standard and can withstand a nuclear, chemical, or biological attack, they are still underground communal units for all residents of a building.
Here in Israel, we don't settle for just descending to a protected shelter; we attach it directly to the citizen. In their apartment. And that's a unique Israeli style, unmatched even in Switzerland, the only other country in the world that thinks like us about protection as an integral part of life.
These are the realities of life here in Israel as of 2023, and it doesn't seem likely to change anytime soon. Until peace comes upon us and our neighbors, we will continue to legally reside with the Mamad, as if it were our destined way of life. Perhaps in fifty years or more, these rooms will become a tourist attraction. Tourists visiting from other lands will hear guides tell stories about the security room that was attached to every Israeli living here, and they will be amazed. It will be a fantastic story.
A building in Haifa that was renovated with Mamads added on both sides. You can see the iron windows at the front of each Mamad and the protected ventilation openings on the left side.
Pieces of History:
The concept of a protected space in the Israeli home front has existed for a long time, since the establishment of the state. The State of Israel was founded amidst war and bombardments of settlements, 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 quiet here, and for many more years, we would live by the sword. David Ben-Gurion, Israel's first Prime Minister, coined the term even then: "The entire nation is an army, the entire land is a front." Since then, this understanding has accompanied the citizens of the state throughout its 75 years of existence, and is concretely manifested in their protected spaces.
The protected space underwent changes throughout the State of Israel's existence. In the early 1950s, the "Civil Defense Law" was enacted, stipulating that every residential building would have one shelter for all residents. The standard shelter was built as a basement, below ground level, and was intended to serve its residents during wartime. Residents of older buildings constructed before the state's establishment had to run to public shelters, built in every local authority, upon hearing an alarm.
For about twenty years, private and public shelters were used very sparingly – a little during the Six-Day War, mainly in Jerusalem, and a little during the Yom Kippur War, mainly in the north of the country. Afterward, the security threat concentrated in the north, along the borders with Jordan and Lebanon – during the "War of Attrition," residents of the Beit She'an Valley entered shelters, and during the "Lebanon War," residents of the north from Nahariya to Kiryat Shmona entered shelters. The IDF provided the response to security threats in these areas, offering more security than any shelter. The army, established to protect us, proved itself and won all wars against our enemies from neighboring countries. In other parts of the country, shelters didn't really function and lost their original value.
For about four decades, when the Israeli home front was considered safe and protected from bombardments, communal residential shelters were neglected and used for storing belongings, drug use, and a variety of other activities and phenomena that were not exactly legal. In many local authorities and educational institutions, public shelters were converted into cultural activity centers, synagogues, archives, or any other activity where the protected and unused rooms could be utilized.
Then came the 1990s. From the east, thousands of kilometers from the country, a security threat emerged that we hadn't known before, menacing the Israeli home front: long-range missiles from an enemy country with no shared border. The threat materialized in 1991 during the "Gulf War" – Scud missiles were launched from distant Iraq towards central Israel, causing direct hits in residential areas.
The destruction caused by the missiles, as well as the casualties, could have been contained. Israelis are, after all, a people who have endured several wars and many terrorist attacks. What truly frightened Israelis was the concern expressed by official sources that some of the Iraqi missiles carried chemical or biological warheads. The threat of unconventional weapons changes the rules of the deadly game, taking the home front to completely different places, and raised the level of fear to unprecedented heights. During the days of the "Gulf War" and the missiles that landed here, millions of Israelis spent weeks in fear, almost paralyzed, clinging to gas masks.
Immediately after the war ended, there was a rethinking of how all citizens, and especially the Israeli home front, are protected from long-range weapons. Following the missile fire from Iraq, the Israeli government decided that public shelters no longer met all security threats, and there was no choice but to upgrade the protected space and bring it into every apartment in Israel.
This is how the Mamad came into being. And since then, it has been with us here, in every apartment, in every home, and in every space.
And that is perhaps one more thing that only we, Israelis, have, and no other nation in the entire world.
This is part of the "Israel Time Capsule 1948-2023" project.
What is the "Time Capsule"?
It's a curated collection of 75 Israeli snapshots, reflecting phenomena that have been, and still are, part of our lives here. Each snapshot provides an updated definition, a few words of explanation, and a touch of history. All these elements collectively form a virtual time capsule designed to remain accessible for future generations. You can see what's inside by clicking on the capsule.
