In today’s world, no nonprofit organization would think twice about collecting, and hopefully analyzing, information about their donors. So too, with website traffic. For how else can one effectively judge site visitors’ demographics and interests?

Based on site and RSS feed analytics, here – in descending order – are the five most popular posts on eJewish Philanthropy last week:

Is Israel Headed Towards Religious Civil War?

A sampling of stories from the Israeli media om the previous night’s Shabbat Square protest that featured children dressed as concentration camp inmates and adults wearing yellow stars.

Thoughts on Beit Shemesh
by Rabbi Daniel Allen

In Beit Shemesh these past days a great miracle has begun to happen which must connect the enlightened Jews both here and there. The rally at Beit Shemesh at the end of Chanukah must become the starting point for a renewed Zionist vision of Israel that is inclusive of all Jews being able to share in the blessings of a secure, democratic Israel with true religious pluralism.

Even while we in chutz l’aretz – outside of Israel (not in exile) – work diligently to support Israel’s legitimate security needs, we must also challenge the Government of Israel to live up to its Declaration of Independence. If written today I am afraid it might have read as follows …

Engaging Jewish Teens
by Leonard Saxe

Over the last two decades a host of commissions and task forces have assessed how the Jewish community can reach out to post-bnai mitzvah teens. The Reform movement, in their just concluded Biennial meeting, declared “Youth Engagement” as their number one priority. They, along with other non-Orthodox movements, recognize that the bar and bat mitzvah ceremony is an inflection point in the lives of American Jews. The question that has bedeviled adults has been how to engage teens once they step off the bimah at age 12 or 13.

Jewish is About Bringing Light, Not Fearing Darkness
by Rabbi Julie Schonfeld

Shortly after making havdalah, the ceremony separating Shabbat from the work week, I went online to reconnect with the rest of the world and, to my horror, saw the images of last night. From Israel, the image of a Haredi boy, styled to look like the iconic Nazi era photo of a Jewish child wearing a yellow star, his hands raised in surrender. This is his parent’s protest against the Jewish state and the Jewish people. Is there no decency?

Workplace Happiness and the Jewish Question
by Hal M. Lewis

For the past several months, The Chronicle of Philanthropy has reported on a growing and troubling trend – the increasing unhappiness among nonprofit organizational employees. In two recent surveys of not-for-profit professionals seventy percent of respondents said that their jobs were either disappointing or only somewhat fulfilling. Fully twenty-five percent of those surveyed said they were considering looking for a job outside the nonprofit world.

The data on Jewish communal professionals are even more discouraging.

Click the red tab above for previous weeks most popular posts.