1. Packing and Shipping
  2. Making sure you keep in touch
  3. Other arrangements

Packing and Shipping

The choice of what to ship over and what to sell here and re-buy there depends highly on your preferences and finances. These decisions will affect the way you choose to move the stuff. Here are some options:

Making sure you keep in touch

Photocopy and give out to the family a sheet with all the contact addresses you know of (your temporary housing address, the office of international students, one or two people at the specific department you're going to). Arrange e-mail accounts for relatives. If they are first-time email users, put your own address in their address book and go through a send-reply sequence. Do a research on the best calling plan and let everybody know what current prices are, since in today's market a plan that was reasonable six months ago is considered expensive now. Some (especially the elderly) may still have a wrong perception on the low cost of international calling --- make this point clear to them or risk them talking fast and hanging up on you after 1.5 minutes of conversation :).

Take a Israeli calling card with you --- for calling home before you have arranged other means. It may also prove cheaper than a pay-phone for emergency long-distance calls within the US, should you need those (after the pay-phone tells you how much money to put in, hang up and call the calling card's center and ask for their rate).

Another option is to keep and use your Israeli mobile phone. It will be expensive, but very convenient. You probably want to do this just for the few first of apartment hunt.

The general rules for using a pay-phone are: use change for local calls (it's 35 cents, which is less than the fee calling cards charge you for using a pay-phone). For long-distance calls, the cheapest way is to buy a calling card at any supermarket or convenience store. Try not to buy them at the airport, where they cost twice the usual price (see below). Note that many businesses have a flat rate for local calling, and will let you use their phone. While you don't normally walk into a store and ask to use their phone, phones in the dorms are likely to have free local calling.

After you settle down, again do a research on the best calling plans to Israel. The best prices used to be on prepaid calling cards or 10-10 numbers, but recently the big carriers caught up. As of summer 2001, you should be able to pay something like 15 cents/minute plus $10-$15 monthly, and even get some frequent flier miles on every dollar on your long-distance bill. As the market is highly competitive, you'll need to repeat this research every few months. Some providers will also give you a calling card so you can get a good rate to Israel even when you call from outside your home. Depending on the provider, the rate on the card may be slightly higher than what you pay from home.

A note on US telephone service: the local company is usually a monopoly, but you get to choose your long-distance provider (in fact you get to choose a "local toll" provider as well, but that has nothing to do with calling Israel). Even if you have a long-distance provider, nothing is stopping you from using a calling card (pre-paid or otherwise) from your home phone. There are also companies that will connect you to Israel on a per-call basis and bill you through your regular phone bills (these are the 10-10 numbers).

If you switch carriers, the company you're switching to will pay the $5 or so that it costs. I even know of someone who gets a check for $70 or more just for switching a carrier, but he is a real heavy user. The big carriers are MCI, AT&T, and Sprint. Similar services are offered by Qwest, Verizon, Primus (my current favorite), and comwave.

If all you want is to fax to someone in Israel, and you can type in the text, you can do it over the web for "free" (they'll slip in an advertisement banner). There are also several phone-over-IP solutions around that let at least one party to use a regular phone (the other one uses the PC sound-card and mike). Some of these are free, but I haven't tried any of them.

Here's a tip for sending flowers to Israel: local florists will charge you an arm and a leg for International deliveries (even though they're not really delivering the flowers from here to there). Instead, pick up the phone and call an Israeli florist (preferably in the city where you're sending the flowers to), and have them deliver the flowers to your destination. You can pay using your Israeli credit card (they'll ask for your address and phone number, but they understand once you explain you're not actually in Israel).

You will probably use a pre-paid calling card before you get a telephone service (or even after, if you travel a lot). You can buy one at the supermarket, hardware store, etc. They usually go for 10 cents/minute or so, which is OK if you have no alternatives (note that there is a surcharge for using them from a pay-phone, which can make them more expensive then just using coins for local calls). For calls to Israel they usually charge 5 minutes for every 1 minute of conversation, so this rate is not that exciting (most probably, you can get that rate using you Israeli calling card). Again, there are a lot of small companies that sell you cheaper cards (for example: 4 cents/minute in the US, 13 cents/minute to Israel, or even less). Try here (my current favorite is this one). Make sure you understand the way they charge --- they usually have either monthly fees, or minimum charge per call (a bummer if you get an answering machine!), or a connection fee, or some other invention to slant the per-minute cost upwards. And be warned --- the sound quality using those cards can be quite bad, so don't buy heavily into one before you've used it for a while and made sure it's OK.

Other arrangements

  • AAA membership will give you free maps at any AAA branch, as well as discounts in hotels, and road services (to what extent?). You can apply for membership at MEMSI [link] branches in Israel (anywhere else?).
  • Don't forget to issue an international driver's license (MEMSI again). Not all states recognize the Israeli license. Even if the local police does, you may get in trouble with the car rental agency or the insurance company.
  • To keep your health insurance in Israel, you should call BITUAH LEUMI and ask for the "unemployed" rate (even that isn't cheap, but at least it covers your spouse as well). The easiest is to set up HORAAT KEVA for them. Other options are to mail them checks every 3 months, or wait until you come back (in which case you will be charged fines and interest).
  • If you keep your Israeli bank account, make sure you will be able to manage it remotely. Personally, I feel that calling the branch and/or the "telebank" center is adequate, but you may want to explore web-based options. Pack a handful of checks for that account with you, just in case you will need to pay someone in Shekels (eg, make a donation to an Israeli organization). For the same reason, try and hang on to your Israeli credit card.
  • You might want to pack a keyboard with the Hebrew letters engraved on it. If you're bringing any Microsoft Office files, I'm told you don't need any "Hebrew-enabled" version of Office to open them.
  • "A letter from the bank proving your financial strength may be useful for picky landlords."
  • "If you use contact lenses bring a large amount of them, as it requires a prescription here."
  • "Don't forget to bring a signed transcript from university. It may help you exempt some courses."
  • "Bring some photos. You'll enjoy taking a look at them sometimes, and show them to your new friends."
  • Maintained by Dan Pelleg.

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