What is this about?
One road. Two houses of prayer. For years, one of them got the tickets.
The road
In Postville there is one road. At one end stands St. Paul Lutheran Church. One block south, on the same road, stands our synagogue, Congregation Achdus Yisroel.
The City owns the road. By our own measurement, it is 31.25 feet wide in front of both buildings. The State's road inventory lists 30 feet for the church's block and 26 feet for ours; an independent professional will measure it. Until October 12, 2026, the City Code said nothing against parking by day at either block. By our reading, the rules were the same.
At the church
Cars park along the edge of the road in front of the church. About 240 feet of it, by our measurement. Every week. No sign. No paint. No tickets. The church also has its own parking lot.
At the synagogue
One block south, at the same edge of the same road, our members parked to come and pray. They got tickets. Year after year.
Until October 12, 2026, there was no sign against parking there by day. There was no paint. The Council had never voted to close it. Only the Council can.
We asked for less than the church has
We asked the City for 230 feet of that edge. The church has about 240 feet, by our measurement, and a lot. The City said no. Its letter said that parking "at another location on Lawler Street" does not require it to allow parking at ours. That is the same road, one block up. The church's block.
The reason we were given for years
For years, the only reason we heard was farm machinery. Nobody ever put it in writing. The machinery comes twice a year. The tickets come all year. And the machinery drives through the church's block too, past the parked cars, and nobody gives it a thought.
When the Council wanted to close one curb on Walnut Drive, it gave its reason on the record and passed an ordinance in twenty-eight days. For our edge, for years, there was no ordinance, no vote, and no record. Only tickets.
What the tickets do to us
For close to thirty years, as our members remember it, we parked in the school's lot behind the synagogue. That ended. Now our members park up the road, on the church's block, about 200 to 400 feet from our door.
We pray three times a day. That is six walks a day. Across a road the City set at 35 miles an hour. With no sidewalk. Our children make that walk. Our parents make it. Members on walkers make it. After dark, too. For one person who parks at the tenth space, that comes to about 136 miles of walking a year.
In September 2000 the City Council set the limit on our block at 35 miles per hour, by Ordinance 546-00, four votes to one. The newspaper reported that the council member who voted no felt it should stay at 25. Iowa law lets a city set such a limit only on the basis of an engineering and traffic investigation. We have looked for that study. We have not found one. We have asked the City for it.
Even on Yom Kippur, the holiest day of our year, when our law does not let us touch a car, a member came out after a day of fasting and found a ticket.
A member with a disability placard parked off the road, on the synagogue's own concrete, because there was nowhere else. That member came out of prayer to find an officer writing a ticket.
The City has provided parking, at one time or another, for a pickleball court, a park, a clinic, a pharmacy, a child-care center, a Catholic church, and a mosque. We have found no record that it ever marked one accessible space at our door. The dated list, from the City's own records, is on the record page.
The signs
Walk around our building and look at the tow-away signs on every side of it. We have driven the streets of Postville looking for others. We could not find two around any other building, or one in front of any other house of worship. What message would you take from that?
It is not fair
Turn it around. Imagine it was your church that got the tickets, and the synagogue one block up that parked free, at the same edge of the same road, under the same rules. What would you call it?
We have looked hard for another reason. We could not find one. The City's letter of September 23 named none. One congregation is Christian. The other is Jewish. I believe that is what this is about. A court will decide whether I am right.
First, this is a matter of simple decency. Then it is the law, and the Constitution: equal treatment for everyone, and the free exercise of religion. Equal treatment is not a favor. It is the law.
This has happened to Jewish communities in other places too. Other cases, other facts. Nothing here predicts this one.
What we did
We asked. We asked again. Then we wrote. We measured the road, took the photographs, read the City's Code and its minutes, and put all of it in front of the City.
On September 23, 2026, the City said no. On September 24 we answered with everything you see here, and asked once more. We asked for an answer by October 5. No answer to those requests came. We asked for the matter to be on the Council's agenda for October 12. It was not. Our letters were not mentioned that night.
What happened on October 12, 2026
That night the Council dismissed a ticket written at the corner by our synagogue on Yom Kippur. Then it passed Ordinance #716-26, five to zero, and waived the remaining readings. As it was described on the City's own video, the road at our door is now closed to parking on both sides, from the curve at the church to where the City's pavement ends, with cones for the church's funerals and weddings. Asked whether anything less restrictive had been considered, the answer was "I don't think so." Every word, with the time on the video, is on the record page.
In our own words: our community built four parking spaces beside the synagogue, on the synagogue's own ground, with our own labor, our own money, and our own cement. Even so, we have never been allowed to park on the boulevard in front of our door.
Watch the meeting yourself. The ticket starts at 6 minutes and 43 seconds. The ordinance starts at 51 minutes and 19 seconds. Then judge for yourself.
We believed one memo would end the tickets. We still believe one strip of pavement would end the walk. The City chose tickets. On October 12, as described on its own video, it chose a ban on both sides of the road.
What this case seeks
This case is not mainly about money. We asked the City for parking, not money, and we offered to withdraw everything if it simply took care of us. If the City ends up paying, that will be its own doing.
Two things. The road put right, so no one crosses it to pray. And the damages the law allows for years of unequal treatment, which a jury decides. It is also about accountability. The people responsible for this practice should not go on making these decisions for the City.
It costs you nothing to register. The plan is for the attorneys to be paid only from what the case wins, and that will be confirmed in writing before anyone signs. Nobody can promise a result, and we do not.
The door is still open
Even now, before any case is filed, the door is open. If the City will sit down with us and end this treatment, the leadership of our community will sign a release. The terms will be settled when the City sits down with us. Your own rights stay your own. No one can sign them away for you.
Why this website
This did not happen to one person. It happened to everyone who ever came to the synagogue and made that walk, or paid that ticket, or looked at those signs. That is why this case is a class action: one case, for all of us.
If you were affected, or you saw it, register below and tell your story. Everything you tell us after you register goes to the attorney's office, and nowhere else. It does not go to the City.
Gideon Gratsiani For and on behalf of the Jewish Community of Postville, Iowa
[ I was affected ] [ I have information that can help ]
Neighbors, see for yourself, and help us stop this.
Know something? Tell the attorneys in confidence.
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