Mamadim, Miguniot and Miklatim

I traveled North this week, to spend a few days with family and spend time with a new grand-daughter. Having lived in Israel more than half my life, through several wars, battles and missions, I generally consider myself to be familiar with the state of war we have been living with for the past year and half. Sons and Sons in law have served hundreds of days in the army, and we, together with the entire population of Israel have gotten to spend more quality time in our ‘miklat’ much more than we have known it since it was built over 35 years ago. We consider ourselves very fortunate to have our own personal miklat (bomb shelter) in our home, and to have 90 seconds with which to get there in the event of a siren, which would alert us to an incoming missile attack from any of our many enemies. In the past these rocket attacks might have come from Lebanon or Gaza,  then more recently from Yemen, and then of course the massive air strike which brought us missiles from Iran. Those in the ‘know’ are able to discern from where the strike is coming, some even choose to ignore missiles coming from place A) and will only head to their shelter if the missile is coming from place B) Can you even imagine such a thing? Up until two years ago, I never gave it much thought, nor did I really consider the difference between a miklat a mamad or a migunit.

While I am quite certain I could research to find the technical differences between all three, suffice it to say that we have a miklat in our home because it was built before a certain year. Homes built just a year or two after ours have mamadim. There are size differences, different requirements for the doors and windows, allowances for a hallway and perhaps also different ventilation requirements. It would appear that a mamad is more appropriate to be used as an actual bedroom (and many do that on a regular basis, unrelated to the current state of war) and many people (ourselves include) whose homes were built with a miklat, tend to store alot of ‘stuff’ in it (and then spend one particularly long visit to the miklat waiting for the ‘all clear’ to sound, going through it all and tossing alot of it.

I am not sure if I ever really noticed a migunit or knew of its existence before October 7 2023. Certainly as we say in Israel, a חור בהשכלה……Simply put, a migunit is a freestanding structure erected just about anywere, to offer protection from incoming rockets. As they have no door, they clearly offer no protection from terrorist infiltration (as we saw so horrifically on Simchat Torah)

As I said, I set out this week to visit family who live a few short kilometers from our Northern border. As I took my new infant grand-daughter for early morning walks (before the heat became too oppressive to be outside) I noticed something I have never seen in my hometown in Gush Etzion. Every few meters, another migunit. Migunit after migunit after migunit.  It reminded me, that despite having lived here all these years, despite raising children who would live to serve our nation and our homeland and protect our borders, I have no idea what its like to live in a place where they have 15 seconds (as opposed to 90) to reach a protected space. We think, what is the difference, its only a minute? Its a HUGE difference and that is evident all around the kibbutz. Each miguint has its own design, its own color, its own ‘personality’ and is located in a very carefully calculated space. Each one has the potential to save a life.

I hope and pray that with G-d’s help and that of  our armed forces together with our elected leaders, my new grand-daughter (together with all of Am Yisrael) will never need to take refuge in one of these.