Help us to facilitate aliyah – to encourage those contemplating it, as well as to help those already in Israel – via our online platform enabling Olim to self-organize into groups exploring possibilities of group-purchase, in order to lower the cost of housing. And also to help Olim have a successful ‘klita’ (absorption) by helping them find the right place to live.

There are very few apartments available for reasonably-priced long-term rental, and most people in Israel – even the poorest – must live in apartments which they own. (Private homes exist but in larger cities are quite rare.) However, apartments in Israel are so expensive now that it is making aliyah even more difficult, especially as one needs to move to a smaller more remote town to find an affordable apartment, and these locations can be very isolating for Olim. Our solution:

1. On our site, Olim find others with similar housing needs to discuss their preferences so that they can if they wish buy as a group and save money. Explanation: Group purchase of apartments in new buildings is common in Israel, but the process is a big unknown to Olim. Also, their inability to speak Hebrew and unfamiliarity with the different locations make it almost impossible for them to join in with Israelis in this task, and in any case their preference is often to live near other Olim. (But we are also working on overcoming all these obstacles.)

2. As a group it is so much easier to navigate the process of locating the right & affordable location, and it is much less expensive and time-consuming for the group to hire an attorney to arrange the purchase for everyone rather than everyone doing so individually.

3. Olim often want to live where others like them live, but those places – being so  popular – are far too expensive now. On our site, Olim can find others like them to form (virtually and then in reality) a “community-in-a-building”, in order to buy in a less-expensive neighborhood without sacrificing the type of community they wanted.

All the major Olim organizations are enthusiastic and are sending their members information about the service with links to the site (via their eNewsletters, FB groups etc). In addition, they have all been invited to provide mentors to participate in group-discussions, in order to guide the groups in making wise decisions (especially in their contacts with contractors & realtors).

We screen the contractors/realtors, and only those committing to a group-discount can participate. The project is intended to eventually become self-supporting, by obtaining a commission from the contractors/realtors chosen by the groups, and hopefully to even become a profitable Jerusalem-based business. Groups will be able to rate the contractor/realtor, as well as the process and the site.

After two years of learning about the housing system, setting up the mechanism of operation, creating the site, and arranging with the Olim organizations etc, we recently launched.

Olim have started to participate, but we will need funding to hire staff to help with the process:

• making the project known among potential and actual olim;
• liasing with the Olim organizations;
• contacting relevant professionals (architects, contractors, realtors etc) and arranging a commitment for group-discounts;
• interacting with the olim in the discussion-groups on the site to assess their needs (in English, French, Spanish/Portuguese and Russian), as well as helping groups locate relevant new construction of apartments and private-home developments and to determine the going rates in preparation for contacting the contractors/realtors.
• monitoring the interactions of the contractors/realtors with the olim groups in a special forum on the site;
• a webmaster to be in charge of the site itself and to develop it further as needed (at this stage it is all being done by the founder).

Your help can make this project a great success.

And we are eager to have your input as part of an advisory board, or simply to give us suggestions. We also can certainly use professional volunteers this summer. And if you are retired and live in Jerusalem and would like to volunteer with us not just during the summer, that would certainly be great.