Rank and File

S YES, WE HAVE DESIGN: Shira Abel-Shvo, a California-born marketing professional and interior design aficionada, says she started blogging about her hobby two years ago as a labor of love. "Tchochkes" - named after the Yiddish word for "small decorative things that you have to dust," as she says - today has 4,000 unique visitors a day and several correspondents who write about everything from furniture construction, fabrics, hinges, handles, flooring, pillows, stoves and so on. There is "color tip of the week" and several other regular columns. Once contributor, Shelly Sharon - a recent transplant from Johannesburg to Tel Aviv - reviewed "Ktura," a tiny lampshades store in Givatayim. "There's loads of amazing interior design in Israel," said Abel-Shvo, "but for some reason most international design magazines ignore the local scene. But there is an Israeli style, and it's a actually a nice style."

S TRADITIONAL EGALITARIAN: Missing the feel of their "traditional egalitarian" congregation back home, former and current members of Los Angeles' IKAR community earlier this month held their first monthly Kabbalat Shabbat plus potluck dinner event in Jerusalem. "While we've had positive davening [praying] experiences in Jerusalem, there's something particular about the feeling and energy of the IKAR community," said Joshua Corber, 27, one of the group's co-founders. "We wanted to recreate the warm and spiritually uplifting environment with which IKAR has provided us and share it with Jerusalem," he continued, adding that the event in his German Colony apartment was attended by some 60 people. "We filled my salon wall to wall and by the second Psalm of Kabbalat Shabbat we were spilling out into the hallway and kitchen," the Vancouver native, 27, said. Bnei Ikar, as the group is called, is planning its next event together with the Jerusalem Open House for December 4.

S HIGH-TECH IDENTITY: PresenTense and ROI, two local Anglo groups helping social entrepreneurs launch creative new projects to strengthen Jewish identity, teamed up Tuesday for a networking event and a lecture by Oramed Pharmaceuticals CEO Nadav Kidron. About 30 young social entrepreneurs - among them prominent Anglo-Jewish bloggers David Abitbol, Dan Brown and Joel Katz - gathered in PresenTense's Emek Refaim Street headquarters in Jerusalem to mingle and listen to Kidron, a Sabra who spoke in accent-free English about launching ventures during an economic downturn. "Bringing together members of the ROI and PresenTense communities based in Israel is a natural way to encourage partnerships and synergies among innovative Jewish initiatives," said Montreal native Justin Korda, director of the Center for Leadership Initiatives in Israel, ROI's parent organization. "Tonight's event demonstrates how socially-minded initiatives in the Jewish world are seeking to learn the best practices from the business community."