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 alphabetical order – are the most popular posts on eJewish Philanthropy last week:

Are there Too Many Congregations? Debunking a “Polite Fiction”
by Rabbi Aaron B. Bisno

“There are too many congregations,” some lament; and we understand.

After all, who but the most myopic can look around the Jewish community (writ national or local; I write from Pittsburgh) and fail to see how much duplication of effort there is and how many of our communities’ finite resources we collectively squander with so many congregations doing so many of the same things.

New York Jews: The Five and a Half Tribes
by Scott A. Shay

The newly released Jewish Community Study of New York, sponsored by UJA-Federation of New York, indicates a new twist in Jewish history. While the study identified many demographic patterns, my reading of its findings is that New York Jewry (with important connotations for overall American Jewish trends) now consists of five and a half distinct tribes. This new tribal alignment has far reaching implications for the face of American Jewry, Jewish engagement, and Jewish communal responsibility.

The Jewish Agency and the Blackberry: Two Peas in a Pod?
by Dan Brown

Two years ago this week, the Jewish Agency (JAFI) approved a new strategic plan…

The new direction was necessary; the plan itself was bold and praiseworthy. Yet, two years later, despite some definite successes, JAFI remains mired in extensive bureaucracy and legacy issues that undermine operations on a daily basis.

The Yesterday of Jewish Philanthropy
by Florence Broder

In a year when the Israeli Presidential Conference not only piggybacks on the Jewish Agency Board of Governors and Assembly, but also on the World Council of Jewish Communal Service Quadrennial, I expected the lone philanthropy panel titled, “The Tomorrow of Jewish Philanthropy,” to blow me away. Instead, the panel was nothing more than a fizzle.

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