Sharing a lift

Active Poster Joined: Sep 12 2011 Posts: 26

We are making Aliyah in a few months b"h and I trying to find someone to share a lift with. We are not taking furniture so we don't need a ton of space. I've looked into all the forums, like isranglo and the NBN forum but they hardly have any posts and are not very helpful. Any ideas? Thanks in advance!!

Gold Member Joined: Apr 23 2007 Posts: 2419

I don't need to share a lift as I just sent one. But here is one thing I learned. You don't need to send a whole lift. You can send whatever you want and you only pay for the space that you are using. For example, we sent 289 cubic feet. I think a whole lift is 1,000 cubic feet. It might take slightly longer to do it this way, b/c they wait for their ship to fill up to send it, but its certainly worth it if you have stuff you want to ship. Also you don't have to deal with other people and getting the stuff from them, customs etc.

We used Sonigo and are very happy with them. We found that they were cheaper for a smaller lift. My parents had used Strand and they were also happy but the way each one does their pricing, it was cheaper to go with Sonigo for a smaller lift and Strand if it was larger.

Feel free to pm me with questions

Posted: Wed, Sep 14 2011, 3:17 am Post subject:

Also, you might want to put up a post stating where your lift is leaving from. Many times people already in Israel have enough of a wish list and are happy to pay their share to be able to bring things over.

***Disclaimer: Israeli law requires you to pay import tax if you are not an oleh chadash. However I know many people who never sent lifts and are only now finding out what they need to bring over. (When I made aliyah I was single; I sent a small lift but didn't use my other two. When someone close to me made aliyah and told me she had space I was more than happy to be able to put on a carseat and pay for the shipping...and if the tax authorities want to come after me for it so be it...I'll pay the taxes!)
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Gold Member Joined: Jan 25 2011 Posts: 2105

where are you sending the lift from?

Posted: Wed, Sep 14 2011, 4:24 pm Post subject: re: Sharing a lift

Yes, knowing where the lift will be coming from and going to makes all the difference. Many cities/yishuvim have email lists that you can send a message stating you are willing to sell space. I would love to send a few boxes if it is coming from a location I can get things to and coming to a location not too far away to pick up.

Also, please be warned not to put your stuff in storage and have the lift company pack it into the container for you. We just sent stuff with someone who did just that and many things are missing. It is a pain to place a claim and who knows if they'll ever pay us back.

Active Poster Joined: Sep 12 2011 Posts: 26

Thanks so much for your replies! The whole process is just daunting to me. The lift would be going from New York to Jerusalem. Shabri, thanks for the info, I'll check out Sonigo. The quotes I got from other companies were insanely expensive, like between four to six thousand dollars without furniture!