jQuery click function only works on first element

In HTML, id refers to a unique identifier. In other words, it is against standards to have 2 elements with the same id. jQuery here behaves correctly.

Use a class instead of an id to identify your tags as such:

HTML:

<ul id="sortable" class="ui-sortable">
    <li class="sortable" id="listItem_1">
        <a class="edit" href="#">edit</a>
        <span id="title">List item 1</span>
    </li>

    <li class="sortable" id="listItem_2">
        <a class="edit" href="#">edit</a>
        <span id="title">List item 2</span>
    </li>

    etc..
</ul>

JavaScript:

$(document).ready(function() {
        $('a.edit').click(function(){
                alert($(this).parent("li").attr("id"));
        })
});

Alternatively, since the parent tag already seems to have a unique class, you could simply use it to target wanted tags. This would reduce what I call "class noise" (the defining of useless class to target element which could be targeted by their parent's unique attributes).

HTML:

<ul id="sortable" class="ui-sortable">
    <li class="sortable" id="listItem_1">
        <a href="#">edit</a>
        <span id="title">List item 1</span>
    </li>

    <li class="sortable" id="listItem_2">
        <a href="#">edit</a>
        <span id="title">List item 2</span>
    </li>

    etc..
</ul>

JavaScript:

$(document).ready(function() {
        $("li.sortable a:contains('edit')").click(function(){
                alert($(this).parent("li").attr("id"));
        })
});

I think this is because use use the same id for each element. Try using a class instead.