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Anyone know of a good (cheap) way to ship home seforim from yeshiva back to the NYC area?
thanks
you really have 2 options. try to get bochurim or tourists headed to your hometown to shlep one or two and end upsending them all, or get a part of a lift. i dont know of any other practical way, unles you spend 1800 dollars on seforim at shankys and then he will ship your seforim for you.
ups or fedex it. or just regular israeli mail.
and pay with your yerusha…
I just shipped them all with the Israeli postal service by boat- it took 2-3 months, cost i think about $1 per lb of sefarim or something like that.
just get very strong boxes ( I bought from the post office) and reenforce them very well with tape because they will get thrown around
By boat or surface mail. Find out from the post office, what size boxes you need to send it by surface mail and pack it up yourself. It takes about 6 – 8 weeks to get. But, you can check with the post office. Behatzlacha!
As sem613 and Best Bubby say.
When we moved from EY to the UK, we shipped almost all of our belongings by mail, including all of our seforim except for a handful.
I have trouble believing there is any cheaper way. I definitely recommend the mail. However as sem613 says, get the boxes from the post office and reinforce them with lots of tape. Use the extra strong brown tape for all corners and in several directions around it, and use see-through tape for all other areas such as the addresses. Also we put some stickers with the FROM and TO addresses on several sides, covered with see-through tape, again. Just to be sure nothing gets lost, you can write your phone number on it as well.
A friend passed this on to me and I just stopped by the store to verify:
There is a seforim store called “Girsa” on Chafetz Chaim Street in Zichron Moshe that ships for $1.50 per kilo. You can pack it yourself otherwise they charge a bit extra to pack. They said out shipment every couple of weeks-call them at 02-500-1356 or stop by to find out when. You have a week from when it arrives to pick it up from the warehouse in Brooklyn.
There’s a publishing company called BB Publishing that ships seforim to NY for 3 shekel/kilo- there’s a minimum 60 kilo requirement. They’ll come pick it up from your house for a few more shekel. They ship it to Boro Park. They can also send it to Lakewood or Monsey for a couple dollars more per box. They speak a good Israeli english.
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israeli34- Have you used BB Publishing in the past? I seem to be having a hard time getting through to anyone. It keeps going to a cell phone’s voicemail and it doesn’t allow you to leave a message.
I learned in eretz Yisroel for 3 years, and never really found a solution for the shipping, so I would always stuff my carry on with seforim (alot of times it would reach 63 pounds!) And then did a whole switch with my friends carry on so they wouldn’t charge me for it being over weight.
You learned for 3 years in Yeshiva and brag about cheating the airline of its overweight charges by switching bags with your friends.
That’s pure G’nava
ctlawyer: While I understand your comment I would like to know: is it any difference if I have 2 pieces of luggage and one is slightly underweight and one overweight and I sit there switching items from one to another to get both at the weight limit? or I have two pieces at 40 lbs and take some of the seforim for this person? Or my carry on weighs 10 lbs and I take a few seforim from this person, is it “evasion” or “avoidance”?
@israeli34 and maamer123.
I actually sent 3 boxes from israel using bb publishing. At first there was a very nice elderly lady who answered the phone and said to call her husband, they were very nice and the husband who looked frum with a white beard about 65 actually picked up the boxes from my apartment for a little extra charge and said that I would get a call at most a month later. After about 2 months of not hearing anything I called the original number I was given and the lady picked up but pretended not to speak English. I then called the husband and he said that there was a problem with the shipment and that it is all in williamsburg but being that there are over 5 thousand boxes it will take another few couple of weeks and he would get back to me. I offered to help but he said no need and he will take care of it. As of this writing it’s been 4 months and they no longer answer anyone’s calls. I have sent them whatsapps messages offering them more money and I see them read it but they don’t answer. I really regret to think this way but it seems that this is a scam to steal sefarim. Of there is anyone on this chat that can help me in anyway get my sefarim back and my notes for a year please let me know. Thank You@iacisrrma
#1>>>if you are the ticket holder and redistribute weight between your own bags so each is within the allowable limit there is no problem
#2>>>if you are a ticket holder and you have some extra weight/space and you allow a friend to place some weight in your bag (and receive no compensation) you probably have no problem in terms of cheating the airline out of revenue. You may have security issues when asked if anyone gave you something to carry /ship or if everything in you bag belongs to you
BUT
#3 >>>If you are a ticket holder and know you are overweight on your carry on, so you do “a whole switch with my friends carry on so they wouldn’t charge me for being overweight” you’d be stealing. This infers that the traveler falsely had the friends legal weight carry on handed to airport personnel for weighing while the friend held onto the overweight bag, then exchanged bags and took the never weighed, overweight bag on the plane.
This is no different than having a friend hold some of your belongings, having your carry on weighed on check-in, then going back to the friend, retrieving your belongings and stuffing the bags with un-weighed goods. That’s stealing.CTL: On #3….I read his words differently. I thought he just redistributed his seforim between his friends. Reading your understanding of the scenario I defer to your answer.
@iacisrmma
As an attorney I tend to read and analyze carefully. The use of the term ‘whole switch’ was a giveaway that subterfuge was employed to cheat the airline. Had the poster written that he asked a friend with a lightweight carry on to carry a few seforim there would not have been criminal intent.We regularly ship cartons of documents to and from EY using both FedExp and DHL and have found the service to be both reliable, timely and cost-effective. DHL is currently slightly lower cost than FedExp also generally faster. However both are a lot more reliable than a bunch of the smaller, independent shippers who claim to offer “discounted” service. The latter are especially risky with respect to getting items cleared through customs at both ends. If these are important and valuable seforim, than I’d say go with a larger shipper. If these are lower cost/ “commodity” type seforim, it may simply be easier to purchase new or used copies back in the U.S.
Wouldn’t shipping a large quantity of Seforim via FedEx or DHL be quite costly?
Next to the Mir will ship a pallet (about 40 boxes) to the US for about $250
They also ship smaller amounts.To Joe…
Good question…if you select one of the “slower” delivery options, DHL and FedExp can be quite competitive with many of these smaller shippers and considerably more reliable. Much depends on the value of the seforim being shipped and how quickly they are needed. If you are shipping a small library of “commodity” seforim (i.e. readily available seforim at any Judaica store on online) than perhaps some of these local shippers are fine. If these seforim have any rarity value, have special significance (limited editions, written notes from an author, etc). than I would spend a few dollars more for the peace of mind of a major shipper with real time tracking (which many smaller shippers lack).
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