AsCalifornia prisoners' massive hunger strike against long-term solitaryconfinement, group punishment, and other cruel and inhuman policies of the CDCR(California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation) enters its second week,Governor Jerry Brown is on a two-week vacation to Germanyand Ireland.  To add insult to injury, itincludes a visit to the Dachau concentration camp.

It isshocking for the Governor to have chosen this time to go on vacation while the CDCRrefuses to meet the hunger strikers' five just demands that would end the torture ofprisoners in the state he is supposed to be responsible for governing.  The International Jewish Anti-Zionist Networkis outraged that Brown dares to exploit theNazi genocide to distract from his complicity in the repression and racism againstprisoners, disproportionately people of color and low income people, women andtransgender people, in order to make money for the lucrative prison industry inCalifornia. 

Pleasetake a moment to sign the  Pledge of Resistance to stand with Californiaprisoners on hunger strike!

We urge you tore-instate Bradley Manning as Grand Marshall for this year's Pride march. As anetwork of Jewish people committed to the end of all occupations and war and tohuman emancipation for all people - particularly those most impacted byoppression and repression - we commend Manning's actions.

As a network committedto the historic struggles of queer and transgender people, we also askthe Board to remember the lives and courage of the fierce transgender men andwomen, the queens and dykes, many of whom were also people of color, who hadthe courage to stand up against the repression and violence against their communitiesby the police.  This led up to theStonewall uprisings in 1969, a significant foundation for the LGBTTQ movementand what Pride itself is built on.

We reject theunfounded claim that Manning's actions endangered soldiers' lives. We remindthe Board that from 2003 to 2012, an estimated 180,000 Iraqis died as a resultof combat and an estimated 650,000 Iraqis died of war- and sanction-relatedcauses. More than 4,800 U.S. troops have died in Iraq since 2003. Certainlyamongst all of those killed in Iraq as a result of the aggression of the U.S.and its allies, many were queer.