The Jewish Telegraphic Agency (JTA) is an international news agency and wire service, founded in 1917, serving Jewish community newspapers and media around the world as well as non-Jewish press, with about 70 syndication clients listed on its web site. Editorial policy The JTA is a not-for-profit corporation governed by an independent board of directors. It claims no allegiance to any specific branch of Judaism or political viewpoint. "We respect the many Jewish and Israel advocacy organizations out there, but JTA has a different mission — to provide readers and clients with balanced and dependable reporting", wrote JTA editor-in-chief and CEO and publisher Ami Eden. He gave as an example of the JTA's coverage of the Mavi Marmara activist ship. JTA is an affiliate of 70 Faces Media, a not-for-profit American media company. Other sites under the 70 Faces Media company include Kveller, Alma, and Nosher. History The JTA was founded on February 6, 1917, by Jacob Landau (a 25 year old) as the Jewish Correspondence Bureau in The Hague, Netherlands. Its mandate was to collect and disseminate news affecting the Jewish communities around the world, especially from the European World War I fronts. In 1919, it moved to London, under its current name. In 1922, the JTA moved its headquarters to New York City. By 1925, over 400 newspapers (Jewish and general) subscribed to the JTA. In November 1937, German Third Reich secret police closed the Berlin bureau of the JTA, a U.S. news bureau, charging it with "endangering public safety and order." In 1940, the JTA spawned the Overseas News Agency (ONA). Although designed to appear like a normal news agency, it was in fact secretly funded by the British intelligence service MI6. ONA provided press credentials to British spies, and planted fake news stories in US newspapers. Meyer Levin was a war correspondent in Europe during World War II, representing the Overseas News Agency and the JTA. Its cable service improved the quality and range of Jewish periodicals. Today, it has correspondents in Washington, DC, Jerusalem, Moscow, and 30 other cities in North and South America, Israel, Europe, Africa, and Australia. The JTA is committed to covering news of interest to the Jewish community with journalistic detachment. In 2015, the news service merged with the site MyJewishLearning to create 70 Faces Media. Staff Boris Smolar joined the JTA in 1924, and retired as its editor-in chief in