The Untold Story- The book entitled The Transfer Agreement: The Controversial Haavara Agreement between the Nazi Regime and the Zionist Movement as a rescue operation. A Review by Dr. Maria Perez
The Transfer Agreement
A story that largely has gone untold, The Transfer Agreement: The Dramatic Zionist Rescue of Jews from the Third Reich to Jewish Palestine recounts the controversial Haavara Agreement between the Zionist movement (as a rescue operation) and the Nazi regime for expediency to achieve an objective.
Some stories largely hidden in the dark recesses of history fairly cry out to be told, and this overview is about one: the dramatic Zionist rescue of Jews from the Third Reich to Jewish Palestine starting in in 1933. The Third Reich, as a result, transferred some 60,000 Jews and $100 million (almost $1.7 billion in 2009 dollars or $2.3 billion in 2022) to Jewish Palestine. In return, Zionists agreed to halt a Jewish-led worldwide anti-Nazi boycott that had threatened Hitler’s regime in its first year.
Ultimately, the transfer (Haavara) agreement saved lives, rescued assets, and seeded the infrastructure of the Jewish state. This book chronicles the anguish underlying that agreement and documents one question: When will the Jewish people not be compelled to make such heart-rending choices?
Indeed, when will all people similarly confronted be freed from the desperation of such choices?
Was the Haavara Agreement madness…or genius? Clues lie within the folds of myriad details.
Jews were first to recognize the threat posed by Hitler and first to react. The Catholic Church, the Lutheran Church, and the Supreme Muslim Council all endorsed the Hitler regime. The United States, England, France, Italy, Russia, Argentina, Japan, Ireland, Poland, and dozens of other nations signed friendship and trade treaties, knowingly contributing to Germany’s economic and military recovery.
Hitler was unique: especially, he was organized. Among Hitler’s enemies, none were so well organized as the Zionists. While world leaders increasingly recognized the Hitler threat, they hoped it would not arrive. Zionists recognized Hitler’s threat—and had always expected it to come in some form. Those factors ultimately determined events of the era and the transfer agreement.
The Nazis had promised that upon assuming power, they would rebuild Germany’s economy, dismantle its democracy, destroy German Jewry, and establish Aryans as a master class—in that order.
With Hitler’s installation, Nazi atrocities intensified. Midnight home invasions by Brownshirts forced Jewish landlords and employees to sign papers at gunpoint favoring tenants or employees in disputes. Leading Jewish physicians were kidnapped from their hospitals to the outskirts of town and threatened with death if they did not resign and leave Germany. Dignified Jewish businesspeople were driven from their favorite cafes, savagely beaten, and sometimes forced to wash streets.
As these atrocities intensified, the American Jewish Congress released a statement: “The time for caution and prudence is past; we must speak up like men; how can we ask our Christian friends to lift their voices in protest against the wrong suffered by Jews if we keep silent?”
At the time, opinions were conflicted about anti-Nazi boycott movements—working to Hitler’s advantage because the Jewish-led worldwide anti-Nazi boycott was one weapon Hitler feared.
Many Jewish organizations believed in the power of Jewish boycotts: a weapon that Jews were ready and willing to use in emergencies to dissuade anti-Semitic forces.
Every implementation of a worldwide boycott set in motion atrocities in Germany against German Jews, however. German medical and judicial societies immediately expelled their Jewish members. In German cities, local SS contingents surrounded Jewish stores, smashed windows, and lobbed stench bombs. Frequently, police demanded that stores owned by Jews close.
The Jewish community in Germany reacted with terror. Prior outbursts had been sporadic, unorganized acts of intimidation and violence against individual families and businesses. The boycott against Jews of the 1930s, however, would become a systematic economic pogrom that would plague every German Jewish business and household. No one would be spared. What professional could survive if he could not practice? What store could survive if it could not sell?
So it was that as the worldwide Jewish boycott was organized against German goods, the German government instituted a boycott against German Jews. This anti-Jewish boycott, violent or disciplined, would be disastrous for Germany’s fragile economy at the time, and virtually everyone in Germany with realistic business sense knew it.
The anti-Jewish boycott in Germany created economic vacancies that eventually would be filled by unqualified rank-and-file Nazis. In Berlin alone, about 75% of the attorneys and nearly as many of the doctors had been Jewish before the Zionists’ boycott.
The Nazis essentially launched war against Jews, mobilizing all Germany. The Jews would launch their own war against the Nazis, mobilizing all the world. Anti-Hitler/Nazi boycotts, protest marches, and meetings were now in store. Germany was to be isolated politically, economically, and even culturally until she cast off the Nazi leadership, to be taught another bitter lesson.
The Zionist Solution
In the eyes of Zionists, the outrages of Hitler were nothing unexpected. Zionist ideology predicted periodic Jewish oppression in even the most enlightened lands of the Diaspora. Anti-Semitism had been part of Jewish life in Europe since the Jews’ emancipation in the mid-19th century, when Jews were permitted to emerge from the ghettos and participate in society with other Europeans—but on a less equal footing.
Zionists therefore saw Hitler’s rise as simply the latest anti-Semitic episode. German Jews were not impoverished peasants or lower-class merchants who owned few valuables. German Jews were solidly middle class, owning lands, homes, furnishings, and stock shares. They were lawyers, doctors, engineers, scientists, artists, and civil servants. They owned department store chains and commercial banks.
These men and women who’d had no place in the German Reich would find an indispensable place in the new Jewish nation. Behold: Israel was waiting within the borders of the Third Reich.
Here was a turning point for Zionism. The Movement’s task was to maneuver to the forefront of the international Jewish response and interpose Zionism and Palestine as the central solution to “the German Jewish problem.”
One of the primary founders of Israel, Theodor Herzl, detailed a blueprint for building the Jewish state that would organize the withdrawal of all Jews from Europe—a feat that carried an obvious appeal, even an unintended justification, for anti-Semites. That political arrangement was promised in 1917, when England issued its Balfour Declaration, committing Turkish Palestine to a Jewish homeland, should the Allies win World War I.
Nazi leadership, of course, relished the prospect of Jews’ expulsion, though the concurrence was clearly perverse: the Nazis sought Jewish cultural destruction and the Zionists a Jewish renaissance.
In response to Hitler’s anti-Jewish policies, Zionists organized a worldwide anti-Nazi boycott at the beginning of Hitler’s reign. Many Jewish organizations believed that was the only effective restraint against Nazi policies.
German leaders realized this anti-Hitler/Nazi boycott threatened to kill the Third Reich in its infancy, either through utter bankruptcy or by promoting an imminent invasion of Germany by its neighbors. Nazis realized that if they were to survive, the boycott would have to be ended.
Every revelation of an atrocity against German Jews, however, propelled the need for the Zionists’ countering boycott.
In a feat of truly divergent thinking, Hitler then proposed linking the purchase of German goods to the settling of German Jews in Palestine: by cultivating orchards in Palestine and using the Jewish national homeland as capital, the anti-Nazi boycott could be broken. The Zionist movement would not only be obliged to refrain from—and oppose—any boycott on German goods; it also would be obliged to sponsor German exports aggressively.
Moreover, the systemic aggress against German Jews would create vast pools of blocked German marks that Germany could use to pay debts. Every German pipe sold, chemical purchased, and pound of foreign currency earned contributed toward another dunam (measure of land area used in Israel and other parts of the former Turkish empire) and another citizen for Eretz Yisrael, the Holy Land, the territory of which include biblical Israel. At the same time, every economic or diplomatic knife slashed at Hitler merely lacerated hopes for a Zionist solution. The plan carried abundant political and financial incentives for the Third Reich.
Jews around the world were now having to choose between fighting Hitler or building Palestine: preserving the old or securing the new. The transfer agreement is the point at which Zionist and Nazi philosophical spheres first touched. German Jews could settle in Palestine if they brought German-manufactured goods with them, thereby breaking the economic boycott against Germany.
As German Zionists had conceived the idea, this massive influx of liquidated Jewish capital would not only bring the first wave of Jewish citizens’ money to Palestine; it would also deliver the investment capital needed to establish the Jewish state.
To Nazis, the territory of Palestine was a convenient dumping ground—in a sense, a remote, self-run concentration camp. To Zionists, this territory was the Promised Land, destined to be a Jewish state.
Palestine was now the crucial gateway to expanding German exports throughout the emerging Middle East market, including Egypt, Iraq, Lebanon, Syria, and North Africa. The Reich deemed this market essential if certain strategic raw materials Hitler craved for war were to be acquired via bilateral trade agreements.
Agreeing to the transfer, the German government felt sure, would trigger the breakup of the anti-Nazi boycott—because the Zionist movement would now essentially be in the German export business.
German Jewish wealth and immigrants would be transferred in a flow wholly dependent on the purchase of German merchandise and commodities.
Through liquidation of their assets, Jews would achieve independence for the first time in 2,000 years.
Those who rejected the anti-Nazi boycott in favor of the Zionist solution questioned whether Jews could ever win such a war…and if they did, would the battles only continue from generation to generation?
After praying for supporters and allies of the Jews for decades, Zionists finally realized that the opportunity to transfer would come not from friends but from foes, as Herzl had predicted.
After forty years of struggle to create a Jewish state, a sudden, spectacular turning point was reached.
For 40 years, there had never been enough money, land, or men; so long as those essentials were lacking, the Jewish state would never be.
But in an office on August 7th, 1933, all this changed. A few men working with telegrams, letters of introduction, images, and the power of prejudice and pretense, glimpsing an opportunity for salvation in the abyss of Nazi injustice, managed to help arrange that miracle.
Henceforth, when Jews were threatened, as they often had been and likely always would be, they would have a nation of their own to come home to: to enter not as a refugee or stranger, but as a full citizen.
The price of this new nation would be the abandonment of the boycott war against Nazi Germany. Whole branches of Judaism would wither, but the trunk would survive.
18th Zionist Congress opens in Prague
In August 1933, a week-long 18th Zionist Congress began, with each Jewish group bringing its own notion of whether such an agreement might represent a betrayal of the Jewish people or a daring move to save German Jews and create a national wellspring for Eretz Yisrael.
We now can see that God used the Zionist Movement in 1933 to bring about the transfer agreement—at the very end of the conference: delegates had spent the whole week disputing the agreement, discounting it, and then—only at the last minute—approving it.
Many future leaders of the new nation of Israel attended the congress in Prague. Clearly God was at work, preparing the Jewish people’s future well before 1948.
On September 3rd, 1933, at 4:30 pm, the final session of the 18th Zionist Congress began for 300 delegates from around the world, plus alternates. Each had one vote.
Those who understood the power of the transfer agreement knew in their hearts that the Jewish state would rise from the anguish and ashes of German Jewry. Indeed, German Jewry would be only the first wave of immigrants.
While it’s always the last key on the ring that opens the door, the passage of the transfer agreement was truly a miracle, confirming that God uses people, situations, and circumstances to bring about His greater purposes. What the devil had meant for evil, God utilized for good to save many of His people.
Most everyone at the 18th Congress had seemed to be against the agreement…until everyone was for it. God, the master chess player always strategizing seven steps ahead, changed men’s hearts to bring about His will and purpose: deliverance for His people 15 years before the nation Israel was founded.
Some compared the Zionists’ confrontations with Hitler to the biblical confrontations in which Moses engaged with the Egyptian Pharaoh, when the question was about freeing stubborn, reluctant people from their captivity—and from their cattle, goats, and possessions. Was Moses to refrain from negotiating with Pharaoh? If he had, the Jews never would have made the exodus to Israel with the possessions they needed to establish themselves.
Hitler was a new pharaoh, the Transfer people argued, and German Jews were descendants of the enslaved people who had been so reluctant to depart from Egypt. As in Pharaoh’s day, without negotiation, there would be no freedom—no Israel.
God, hard at work on a reconstruction project amid all the chaos, was accomplishing an excellent thing.
4 Biblical themes in this story
- God can use for good what the devil intended for evil—such as the Nazi Regime.
- God is always thinking about tomorrow: the nation of Israel was birthed well before its 1948 founding.
- God sets the stage for His future agenda, even using and changing the hearts and minds of adversaries.
- When God is doing great work, bumps along the way can be expected: conflicts, opposition…no easy journey.
For years, Nazi leaders had cooperated with Zionists—not out of sympathy with Jewish nationalism, but simply to effect the removal of Jews from Germany and break the anti-Hitler/Nazi boycott.
Jewish Palestine’s rapidly expanding economy brought worker and commercial opportunities. More doctors, lawyers, engineers, teachers, hoteliers, restauranteurs, and entrepreneurs were needed. Several thousand German Jews who came to Israel on limited capitalist certificates filled many niches.
Fifteen years earlier, the nation of Israel hadn’t existed. Few could visualize what was to come into being, but one small group of men foresaw it all. Nothing would stop them—no force was too great to overcome. These men were instrumental in the creation of Israel, each leaving a fingerprint on the most controversial undertaking in Jewish history: the Transfer Agreement that paved the way for the state of Israel.
Was it madness…or genius?
Works Cited
Black, Edwin (2022). The Transfer Agreement: The Dramatic Zionist Rescue of Jews from the Third Reich to Jewish Palestine. Washington: Dialog Press.
The dramatic Zionist rescue of Jews from the Third Reich to Jewish Palestine. Washington: Dialog Press.
A Report on Camp Constitution’s 16th Annual Family Camp
Camp Constitution’s 16th annual family camp ended last Friday. For the fifth year in a row and we hope for the foreseeable future, the camp took place at the Singing Hills Christian Camp in Plainfield, NH. “This may have been our largest turnout in our camp’s history with attendees coming as far as Frankfurt, Germany, Cape Town, South Africa, Florida and Texas” said camp director and co-founder Hal Shurtleff
Returning instructors included Professor Willie Soon, one of the world’s top atmospheric scientists, who attended with his family, Pastor David Whitney of the Institute on the Constitution, Rev. Steve Craft who serves at the camp chaplain, Mrs. Catherine White of the Constitution Decoded, and author and host of the Liberty Sentinel program, Alex Newman. Alex had to leave Tuesday due to the fact that his wife is expecting but he gave three classes on Monday and even did an episode of his show which runs on a number of platforms including Frank Speech https://frankspeech.com/shows/sentinel-report-tv-show-alex-newman
Our guest instructors were Mrs. Julie Wilkerson who played the abortion nurse in the movie UnPlanned: The Abby Johnson Story and author Dr. Felecia Nace. Dr Nace attended out 2020 camp and was the guest speaker at this year’s Ladies “Spring Fling”. For the tenth year, Mr. Mert Melfa served as our videographer and uploaded videos of our classes and activities. A link to our 2024 Family Camp YouTube playlist: https://studio.youtube.com/playlist/PL7jnzBzBiNYBuAEivmEE9B-L1wy4ZKTEc/videos
We start our day with an optional run and/or swim at 6:30. Wake up is 7:00 and morning devotions and flag-raising at 7:50. As he has for the past few years, veteran camper Franklin Soon plays “Reveille” on the trumpet followed by the firing of our cannon: https://youtu.be/vlj4Kz-TV3w?si=KqfpCG8-wvJYbGOz
After a hearty breakfast, the camp conducts three 45-miniute classes
During the first class, Head Counselor Chris Kalis conducts room inspection where we look for cleanliness, as well as a Patriotic and Christian theme. Chris will give the room points towards the room inspection contest where the occupants of the winning room get treated to free pizza on Thursday after campfire. The Girls of Room 11 in Mountain View were the winners. The daily inspection results are posted in the camp’s daily newspaper, “Camp Constitution Journal” distributed in the evening. The paper, edited Mark Affleck, also has articles written by campers about the daily activities and classes. A link to PDF versions of the paper: https://s3.amazonaws.com/camppictures/CampArchive/index.html
Monday afternoon, we offered an optional martial arts training class taught by Mr. George Dewhurst of Alton, NH.
Over the years, we have been blessed with talented campers and staff and this year was no exception. From Mrs. Paulie Heath, our campfire director who is a Christian recording artist to the Soons-Emily, Ben, and Franklin to Josh Viliniskis, to Mrs. Catherine White to new campers Elayna, Alise and Christie Uhl from Wisconsin to Jonathan Cohler, a world-renowned clarinetist, our ears were treated to some incredible music. These talents are showcased at our evening campfires, where in addition to music and singing, attendees tell “Dad” jokes, skits, and recite poetry. Campfire ends with a devotion and the playing of “Taps.”
Our junior campers -ages 5-12- also attend classes taught by Mrs. Edith Craft, Mrs. Kathy Mickel who also serves as our nurse, Mrs. Jessica Whitworth, and Mrs. Roberta Stewart. On Thursday, the Junior Campers have a parade through camp:
For the second year, Mr. Keith Hanson and his team at Critical Dynamics taught the optional firearms training on Tuesday afternoon. We had a number of first-time marksmen on hand.
Mr. Chris Kalis who drives all the way from Michigan, also serves as recreational director. He runs the afternoon program which includes volleyball, basketball, “steal the bacon” a chess tournament, and our annual wiffleball game between “The Shurtleff All Stars” and “The Kalis Barnstormers.”
Wednesday afternoon, we had an optional field trip to the Precision Museum in nearby Windsor, Vermont where we learned about our nation’s role in the Industrial Revolution.
On Thursday afternoon, Junior campers were entertained by Alan “Spunky” Bellanger:
The camp has both a pond and a pool which are popular with the campers:
On Thursday evening, the camp held its closing ceremony where the Super Camper and Super Staffer awards along with and our new “Willie Soon” Award for Instructional Excellence. are presented. Mrs. Jessica Whitworth was awarded the Super Staffer award, Professor Willie Soon was awarded the first “Wille Soon Award.” Campers Ben Soon and Elisabeth Krutov were the Super Campers, and Jonathan Larson and first-time camper Alise Uhl were the runner ups. Super Campers win a free tuition for next year’s camp. Junior camper program director Mrs. Edith Craft presented certificates of completion to our junior camper camp program
(Ben Soon, Jonathan Larson, Elisabeth Krutov and Alise Uhl)
Here is a link to pictures and videos of activities of our camp:
Thanks to all of you who through your prayers, financial support, promotion, and participation have made this camp and Camp Constitution possible, and a special thanks to Mr. Phil Lee and his staff at Singing Hills.
Next year’s camp will run from Sunday July 13 to Friday July 18 and returns to Singing Hills Christian Camp in Plainfield, NH.
Couldn’t make it to our annual family camp, consider attending our 3rd annual weekend family retreat which runs from Friday September 27 to Sunday September 29, and held at Camp Sentinel in Tuftonboro, NH. A link to the application: https://campconstitution.net/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/Family-Weekend-Release-form-2024.pdf
Camp Constitution 2024 Archive Update
Campers:
It was a great week. I was glad to see all our returning campers and it was a pleasure to meet soooo many new campers. We had quite a talent pool at our campfires this past week and much of it was captured in video and in pictures. You will be glad to know that all those shared photos and videos were uploaded to the archives.
Use the Camp Items Menu->Camp Pictures or this link to visit the archive.
Also, the newspapers from last week are avail under the Camp Items Menu->Camp Archives. Once there choose the Camp Journal Archives link or use this quick link to get there.
Keep in mind, if you are a repeat camper or parent of several campers, all the surviving photos and newspapers are available going back to the beginning in 2009.
Have fun revisiting past camps and I hope to see you all next year!
A Runaway Slave and First Republican Platform
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Camp Constitution’s Third Annual Weekend Family Camp Friday September 27 to Sunday September 29
Camp Constitution’s third annual weekend family camp will be held from Friday September 27 to Sunday September at Camp Sentinel in Tuftonboro, NH. https://www.campsentinel.org/
This year’s weekend instructors include Rev. Steve Craft, author of America: Home of the Brave or Land of the Slave, Michael King of the Massachusetts Family Institute, and New Hampshire State Rep. Paul Terry. Mrs. Jessica Whitworth will run the Junior Patriot Camo for children 4-12.
Recreational Activities include canoeing, basketball, gaga and a field trip to the Wright World War II Museum and Apple Picking. Cost is $150. Per person. A link to the application: https://campconstitution.net/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/Family-Weekend-Release-form-2024.pdf
For more information, please contact Hal Shurtleff at (857) 498-1309 or E-mail campconstitution1@gmail.com
Camp Constitution Six Month Report for 2024
Camp Constitution in the News
Our lawsuit “Shurtleff v Boston” continues to be mentioned in the news around the United States. Our case was cited in defense of the recently passed law in Louisiana that calls for the placing of the Ten Commandments in the state’s public school classrooms. Cities and towns across the United States cited our case when passing ordinances banning all third-party flags including Lockhaven, PA, Enfield, CT and LaRue, TX. While other towns and cities, due to our case, have allowed the flying of Christian, and Pro-Life flags including Waltham, MA, Hartford, CT and Nashua, NH.
Camp Constitution on the Air
We had two appearances on the Duke Pesta Show. Duke plans to have us on his show on a regular basis. We had two appearances on the Tamara Scott Show which airs on Frank Speech, two appearances on the Pro-America Report hosted by Ed Martin of the Phyllis Schlafly Eagles, an appearance on the Chris McCarthy Show on WBSM New Bedford, an appearance on Red Pill Politics which airs on Republic Radio, and for the first time, an appearance on the George Hale–Ric Tyler Show on WVOM FM Maine. We also appeared as a guest on Chattin with Janine- TV Show which airs on Merrimac, NH’s cable station, and hosted by New Hampshire State Rep Janine Notter. We also co-hosted a show on the newly rebooted Catching Fire News, and an appearance on Alex Newman’s Sentinel Report. Vince Ellison appeared on the Grace Curley Show WRKO Boston on our behalf, and as mentioned in the last report, Camp Constitution instructor Willie Soon appeared as a guest on the Tucker Carlson Show and promoted Camp Constitution leading to thousands of views on our website, unsolicited donations and about thirty new family camp attendees including a familu from Frankfort, Germany.
Special Projects and Events
We had information tables at the Mass HOPE and Homeschoolers of Maine annual conventions. We participate in a flag raising ceremony of Resurrection Sunday in front of Nashua, NH’s City Hall. Nashua residents Beth Scaer and Marc Vatter sponsored the event. We had our Spring Clean Up at our two miles of road on Alton, NH.
We hosted our 2nd Annual Homeschool Patriots Day Overnight at the Lane House in Lexington, MA:
Thanks to two generous donors, we were able to run radio spots promoting the Sam Blumenfeld Archive, and Ladies Weekend Retreat on WRKO, the most popular AM talk radio show in New England, and WORD Radio WSEW in Rochester. The spots also ran free on New Hampshire Gospel Radio WVNH, WANH, and WJNHA link to the radio spot: https://youtube.com/shorts/CC7MaLHpQPQ?si=3wzZlG6P49CQ6NU6
YouTube, and Rumble
We received 327,000 views for this reporting period and as well as 6,832 new subscribers giving us close to 15,000 subscribers. Since creating our channel, we have received 1.9 million views. Our Rumble channel had 3,864 views and 800 likes. If you haven’t already, please subscribe to these two channels and share the videos:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCN7ME18Q1xiqcrPEn5h5FbA
https://rumble.com/account/content?type=all
Camp Constitution Radio on Podomatic and Other Platforms
Since January 2015, our 30-minute radio show has been airing on WBCQ The Planet, and for the past six years, we have uploaded our shows on Podomatic, and linking the show to Amazon, I-Heart, Spotify, and several other platforms. Due to the passing of one of our donors, we had to cancel our radio show at the end of June. We will replace it with a podcast called The Camp Constitution Report which will offer interviews and commentary.
For this reporting period, we have received 651 plays and 1,79 downloads of our shows. We continue to be in the top ten for the category of conservative-right. In addition to our weekly show, we have uploaded some classic interviews and speeches by the likes of Dan Smoot, Gary Allen, and E. Merrill Root. A link to our show: https://www.podomatic.com/podcasts/shurtleffhal
Camp Constitution Press
We published The Racist Roots of Planned Parenthood and Its Legacy of Death and Art and Revolution, and we had another printing of Alpha-Phonics, and The 1928 U.S. Army Manual. Thanks to the efforts of Bill McNally and his daughter, Barbara, who edited an unpublished manuscript on the JFK assassination written by Sam Blumenfeld in 1965, we will be publishing Sam’s work titled Did the KGB Kill Kennedy? Bill and Barbara are also working on a more difficult edit of Sam’s Did the Communists Create the Neo-Nazi Movement in America
Speakers Bureau
We had 27 speaking engagements including five engagements by best-selling author Vince Ellison, and two for Willaim Brown and Phil Zodhiates of Save the Persecuted Christians.
Website
75,000 views and 28,000 visits on the site.
Sam Blumenfeld Archives
354,000 Hits with over 1,000 Alpha Phonics workbooks downloaded. As mentioned above, we reprinted 200 copies of Alpha Phonics and ran 30-second promotional spots on several radio stations including WRKO, and WORD Radio in Rochester, NH:
https://youtube.com/shorts/CC7MaLHpQPQ?si=Hh2QeYh7qOP0buV7
The Blumenfeld Archives
Facebook Page
We have 3,200 likes and over 3,500 following our page. We also manage six other groups and one other page-all of them growing in members
Stopping An Article V Convention
We testified against HCR 8 a resolution introduced by the far-left group Wolf PAC in New Hampshire’s House and it was soundly defeated, and we testified in favor of HCR 9, a resolution to rescind New Hampshire’s only Article V application. It passed the House by a voice vote which surprised many pundits but was not taken up in the Senate. In Maine, we helped defeat a resolution for an Article V Convention. On the morning before the vote, we appeared as a guest on WVOM-the Voice of Maine to discuss the issue. A link to the interview: https://youtu.be/g72_f6vk1ts?si=7R8Mg2aog5ZRFBVr
Ladies Spring Fling
We held our 5th annual ladies “Spring Fling” in early April held at the Alton Bay Christian Conference Center. Guest speaker was Dr. Felecia Nace.
Looking Into the Next Six Months
We are co-hosting a Patriot Camp in Maine. We will have an info table at the Crown of Maine Balloon Festival in Presque Isle, Maine. Our third annual Family Weekend Retreat returns to Camp Sentinel in Tuftonboro, NH. We have tentative plans to attend a patriot rally in Texas. We have a ladies fall retreat in early November which will be held at the Alton Bay Chrisitan Conference Center.
Our 16th Annual Family Camp
Our camp starts up next week. We have a full house with over 150 signed up.
How You Can Help
Pray for our nation and for Camp Constitution.
Host a Camp Constitution speaker.
Subscribe to our YouTube and Rumble channels and follow us on Podomatic.
View and share our videos and podcasts.
Make a monthly donation or a one-time donation. Donations may be made via our PayPal account accessed from our website’s homepage https://www.campconstitution.net
If you own a business or are involved with a non-profit, consider a sponsorship for a minimum of $100. A year.
A thanks to all of you who have helped make our camp program possible and my position possible.
Blessings.
Hal Shurtleff, Director
Camp Constitution
The Weekly Sam: Are Compulsory School Attendance Laws Good for America? By Samuel Blumenfeld
Should a child be forced to attend a public school that will turn him into a functional illiterate? Since no public school will guarantee that a child will be taught to read in a manner that will help him achieve high literacy, why should a parent send a child to that kind of school? Indeed, why should compulsory school attendance laws force parents to do something that wil1 harm their children? It is assumed by the vast majority of Americans that the issue of compulsory school attendance is a settled matter, part and parcel of every civilized nation-state, and a prerequisite of a democratic society. We all acknowledge that a representative form of government requires an educated electorate for its survival. But what happens when that government’s schools no longer know how to teach children to read and write, when those schools turn children not into civilized citizens, but into barbarians?
What happens when millions of parents feel compelled to remove their children from government schools in order to make sure that their children do get an education? What happens is that the basic premises of compulsory attendance and government education come into question. The glaring fact is that despite our compulsory attendance laws, we now have more illiteracy and more ignorance among Americans than before such laws were enacted. The first compulsory school attendance law was passed in Massachusetts in 1852 and by 1918 every state in the Union had such a law. Yet, the fact is that these laws have merely increased the amount of time children spend in school, not the amount of learning or knowledge they acquire. The Way It Was To find out how much better educated Americans were before compulsory attendance laws and government schools existed, all we have to do is read DuPont de Nemours’ fascinating little book, National Education in the United States of America, published in 1812. He writes: “The United States are more advanced in their educational facilities than most countries. They have a large number of primary schools; and as their paternal affection protects children from working in the fields, it is possible to send them to the school-master–a condition which does not prevail in Europe. “Most young Americans, therefore, can read, write and cipher. Not more than four in a thousand are unable to write legibly–even neatly. “England, Holland, the Protestant Cantons of Switzerland more nearly approach the standard of the United States, because in those countries the Bible is read; it is considered a duty to read it to children; and in that form of religion the sermons and liturgy in the language of the people tend to increase and formulate ideas of responsibility. Controversy also has developed argumentation and has thus given room for the exercise of logic. “In America, a great number of people read the Bible, and all the people read a newspaper. The fathers read aloud to their children while breakfast is being prepared–a task which occupies the mothers for three quarters of an hour every morning. And as the newspapers of the United States are filled with all sorts of narratives… they disseminate an enormous amount of information.”
Obviously, back in the very early days of this republic, education was a family affair closely connected to religious practice. A nation built on Biblical principles had to be a highly literate one. In addition, all of this education was achieved without any government involvement, without any centralized educational bureaucracy, without any professors of education, or accrediting agencies or teacher certification. And, most significantly, without any compulsory attendance laws. The Way It Is Contrast that happy picture of complete educational freedom and high literacy with the present situation in which the State has asswned the function of educator, at great expense to the taxpayer, with all sorts of laws and regulations forcing the population to patronize a system that is turning out functional illiterates by the millions.
According to an article in the Spring 1989 issue of Education Canada, published by the Canadian Education Association: “It is currently estimated that one million Canadians are almost totally illiterate and another four million are termed ‘functionally illiterate.’ In the United States these figures are estimated respectively at 26 million and 60 million.” Both Canada and the United States have had compulsory attendance laws for decades. The purpose of these laws was to make certain that every child was educated. The laws were particularly aimed at the children of the poor, and yet it is they who have suffered the most at the hands of government education. Even Secretary of Education Cavazos, in 1989, admitted in the frankest terms that the government education system was failing the American people. In his sixth annual report card on American schools, he repeated the well-known litany of failures that still plague American education: declining SAT scores, declining interest in math and science, declining literacy, and a soaring dropout rate in Washington, DC.
He said that we were still wallowing in a ‘tide of mediocrity,” and that “we must do better or perish as the nation we know today.” Has anything changed since 1989? Yes, it has all gotten worse. In fact, it was an alarming report on American literacy issued in 2007 by the National Endowment for the Arts that informed Americans that the reading problem had deteriorated further since Secretary Cavazos issued his own alarming assessment. The chairman of the Endowment, Dana Gioia, stated: ‘This is a massive social problem. We are losing the majority of the new generation. They will not achieve anything close to their potential because of poor reading.” The Endowment report revealed that the number of 17-year-olds who never read for pleasure increased from 9 percent in 1984 to 19 percent in 2004. Almost half of Americans between the ages of 18 and 24 never read books for pleasure. Why? Because reading has become a painful, tortuous exercise that they wish to avoid.
The simple truth is that literacy is not at all difficult to achieve, provided the schools use the right phonetic teaching methods. Indeed, the home-school movement has already proven that parents can actually do a better job of teaching reading than our high-priced professionals. It has also been shown that children progress better academically when taught at home, and that the cost of educating a child at home is less than $1,000 a year. So why do we need compulsory attendance laws? We need them so that the ruling liberal elite can dumb down the population and make sure they can’t read.
For proof of this, listen to the words of Professor Anthony G. Oettinger of Harvard University, given in a lecture to an audience of Telecom executives in 1982: “The present ‘traditional’ concept of literacy has to do with the ability to read and write. But the real question that confronts us today is: How do we help citizens function well in their society? How can they acquire the skills necessary to solve their problems? “Do we, for example, really want to teach people to do a lot of sums or write in ‘a fine round hand’ when they have a five-dollar hand-held calculator or a word processor to work with? Or, do we really have to have everybody literate–writing and reading in the traditional sense–when we have the means through our technology to achieve a new flowering of oral communication? “What is speech recognition and speech synthesis all about if it does not lead to ways of reducing the burden on the individual of the imposed notions of literacy that were a product of nineteenth century economics and technology? . “It is the traditional idea that says certain forms of communication, such as comic books are ‘bad.’ But in the modem context of functionalism, they may not be all that bad.”
I doubt that there are any parents in America who send their children to school to learn to read comic books. If anything, they want their children to be taught to read and write in the traditional manner. They don’t consider learning to read as a “burden imposed on the individual.” Rather, if taught in the proper phonetic manner, learning to read becomes a joyful experience for children eager to expand the use of their minds and language.
Although the compulsory attendance laws were enacted to make sure that everyone learned to read, their new application by the likes of Professor Oettinger and his liberal colleagues is to make sure that the population can be controlled and manipulated by schools that serve the agenda of the ruling elite. There is no longer any need for compulsory attendance laws since the ruling class no longer believes that literacy is for everyone, the poor and the rich. In reality, the compulsory attendance laws are the linchpin in the plan for a socialist world government. Such laws have been used by every modern dictator to control the people and mold the minds of the children. Such laws are not only not needed in a free society, but ultimately lead to its demise.
The Blumenfeld Archives
Independence Day – “GREATEST REVOLUTION that has ever taken place IN THE WORLD’S HISTORY”
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Camp Constitution wishes all a Happy Independence Day.
Signers of the U.S. Constitution. How Many Can You Name?
On July 4th 2009, I was delivering delayed luggage out of Logan Airport. While waiting for the last flight to arrive, I decided to ask my colleagues how many signers of the Declaration of Independence they could name. I gave them a monetary incentive of $20. My past experiences with asking this question convinced me that my money was safe. I was right. The most I got from any co-worker was three. My firsthand experiences over the years show that my suitcase colleagues are on par with most Americans. However, I recently shared my suitcase story with a group of 5th graders from the Lion Heart Classical Academy in Peterborough who were attending the 1st annual Patriot Youth Program hosted by the New Hampshire Daughters of the American Revolution at the Cathedral of the Pines in Rindge, NH. I asked the fifth graders the same question, and one young man said “John Adams, Sam Adams, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Frankin, and John Hancock.” He then asked me for $20 I told him I only had two dollars in my pocket but offered him a week at our annual family camp worth $300. His dad was in hand and said that he would take us up on the offer. Meanwhile, retired Army Colonel Otto Busher, who was part of the program, handed the boy $20.
Does it matter if the average American can’t name five signers of the Declaration of Independence? With the exception of the Cultural Marxists and those they have convinced to hate American and its incredible history, most Americans love to celebrate Independence Day. Yes, even in Boston where tens of thousands of people of all races come out to the Esplanade and listen to Patriotic music performed by the Boston Pops, wave Old Glory, and watch the fireworks. So, yes, Americans should know a little about the day they are celebrating and the brave men who made that day and our nation possible.
There were fifty-six men that signed the Declaration of Independence. They pledged their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor, Not one defected. Not one “matured politically.” While there is some dispute, it is widely believed that John Hancock was the only delegate to sign the Declaration of July 4th. It wasn’t until August 2 that the majority of the delegates signed the Declaration. New Hampshire’s Dr. Matthew Thornton was one of the last signing it on November 4th, 1776. While I won’t give a biography of all 56, I will give a short bio of our state’s signers and recommend the book Lives of Signers of the Declaration of Independence originally published in 1850 and reprinted by Wall Builders:
New Hampshire had three signers: Josiah Bartlett, William Whipple and Matthew Thornton.
(Dr. Josiah Bartlett)
Josiah Bartlett was born in Amesbury, MA on November 29, 1729. He became a doctor at the age of 21 and moved to Kingston, NH. He and his wife Mary had 12 children. He was elected to the office of justice of the peace but in 1774, the governor, appointed by the King, had him removed from the position due to his involvement with the Committee of Correspondence. In 1775, Bartlett became a colonel in the New Hampshire Militia, and became a member of the 2nd Continental Congress that same year. He voted for independence on July 4th, being the first delegate to do so. He signed the Declaration of Independence on August 2 and may have been the 2nd one after John Hancock. During the war, he served as a physician treating wounded soldiers. He was a member of the Constitutional Convention, and as a supporter of the new Constitution, he serves as a delegate to New Hampshire’s Ratification Convention. He became the 1st governor of New Hampshire in 1793. He passed away in 1795, and is buried in the Plains Cemetery in Kingstown, NH
William Whipple
Born in Kittery, Maine 1730 which was part of Massachusetts at the time, he became a ship captain. He became a delegate to the 2nd Continental Congress and signed of the Declaration of Independence. He served as a brigadier general in the New Hampshire. Militia. He led his soldiers in the Battle of Saratoga. He freed his slave Prince who served with him during the war. Prince was depicted in the painting “Washington Crossing the Delaware” by Emanuel Leutze, but it was historically inaccurate since he was not involved with the crossing. After the war, he became a New Hampshire judge on the state’s supreme court. He died in November of 1785 and is buried in North Cemetery Portsmouth, NH.
(Prince Whipple)
Matthew Thornton
Born in Ireland on 1714, he came to America when he was four. He and his family settled in Worcester, MA, and he, like Josiah Thornton, became a doctor. He settled in Londonderry, NH. He and his wife Hannah had five children. In 1745, he served a surgeon in the Battle of Louisburg in Nova Scotia. He became a member of New Hampshire’s colonial legislature and in 1775, he became president of New Hampshire’s provincial congress. He became a delegate to the Second Continental Congress, and while he wasn’t present on July 4, he signed the Declaration on November 4, 1776, being one of the last to do so. Like Josiah Bartlett, he became an associate justice on the New Hampshire Supreme Court. Late in life, he published Paradise Lost, or the Origin of the Evil called Sin. He died in 1803 while visiting his daughter in Newburyport, MA. He is buried in Thornton Cemetery, Merrimack, New Hampshire.
One of my favorite Founding Father’s was John Adams who was the main driving force behind the Declaration of Independence, prior to the vote for independence, he made this speech:
Sink or Swim, Live or Die, Survive or Perish, I give my heart and my hand to this vote. It is true indeed that in the beginning we did not aim for Independence, but there is a Divinity that shapes our ends. Why then should we defer the declaration? You and I indeed may rue it. We may not live to see the time when this declaration shall be made good. We may die; die Colonists or die Slaves. Be it so, be it so. If it be the pleasure of Heaven that my country shall require the poor offering of my life, the victim shall be ready. But while I do live, let me have a country, or at least the hope of a country, and that a free country.
But whatever may be our fate, be assured that this declaration will stand. It may cost treasure and it may cost blood, but it will stand and richly compensate for both. Through the gloom of the present, I see the brightness of the future, like the sun in heaven. We shall make this a glorious and immortal day. When we are in our graves our children will honor it. They will celebrate it with thanksgiving and festivities, with bonfires and illuminations.
Before God I believe that the hour has come. My judgment approves this measure and my whole heart is in it. All that I have, all that I am, and all that I hope in this life I am now ready to stake on it and leave off as I began. Live or die, survive, or perish, I am for this declaration. It is my living sentiment and by the blessing of God it will be my dying sentiment. Independence now, Independence forever.
May the readers of this blog have a Happy Independence Day. Readers who would like a free pocket copy of the U.S. Constitution containing the Declaration of Independence may send me an E-mail campconstitution1@gmail.com
P.S. Question: What other countries have a July 4th? Answer: They all do.
Video: The urban heat island – implications for global warming & climate change by Benjamin Soon
This video was created by Benjamin Soon, a veteran Camp Constitution camper and son of Camp Constitution instructor Professor Willie Soon.
Most people today live in urban areas, including cities. Cities tend to be hotter than their surrounding rural areas. This means that the local climate change experienced by most people is different from the global climate changes experienced by the rest of the world. City dwellers are experiencing more heat waves, earlier springs, and milder winters than everyone else.
What are the implications of the urban heat island (UHI) effect for our current understanding of global climate change and global warming?
In this video, we compare rural and urban weather station data to explain “urbanization bias” in cities along with possible solutions to urban heating.
Relevant links
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For the relevant discussion on urban heat islands in the IPCC’s latest (2021) assessment report, see Section 2.3.1.1.3 “Temperatures during the instrumental period – surface” in Chapter 2 of Working Group 1’s 6th Assessment Report (AR6): https://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar6/wg1/chapter/chapter-2/
Papers referenced in the video:
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W. Soon, R. Connolly, M. Connolly, S.-I. Akasofu, S. Baliunas, J. Berglund, A. Bianchini, W.M. Briggs, C.J. Butler, R.G. Cionco, M. Crok, A.G. Elias, V.M. Fedorov, F. Gervais, H. Harde, G.W. Henry, D.V. Hoyt, O. Humlum, D.R. Legates, A.R. Lupo, S. Maruyama, P. Moore, M. Ogurtsov, C. ÓhAiseadha, M.J. Oliveira, S.-S. Park, S. Qiu, G. Quinn, N. Scafetta, J.-E. Solheim, J. Steele, L. Szarka, H.L. Tanaka, M.K. Taylor, F. Vahrenholt, V.M. Velasco Herrera and W. Zhang (2023). “The Detection and Attribution of Northern Hemisphere Land Surface Warming (1850–2018) in Terms of Human and Natural Factors: Challenges of Inadequate Data”, Climate, 11(9), 179; https://doi.org/10.3390/cli11090179. Open access.
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R. Connolly, W. Soon, M. Connolly, S. Baliunas, J. Berglund, C.J. Butler, R.G. Cionco, A.G. Elias, V. Fedorov, H. Harde, G.W. Henry, D.V. Hoyt, O. Humlum, D.R. Legates, N. Scafetta, J.-E. Solheim, L. Szarka, V.M. Velasco Herrera, H. Yan and W.J. Zhang (2023). “Challenges in the detection and attribution of Northern Hemisphere surface temperature trends since 1850”. Research in Astronomy and Astrophysics. https://doi.org/10.1088/1674-4527/acf18e. (🗄️). Supplementary Materials.
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R. Connolly, W. Soon, M. Connolly, S. Baliunas, J. Berglund, C. J. Butler, R. G. Cionco, A. G. Elias, V. M. Fedorov, H. Harde, G. W. Henry, D. V. Hoyt, O. Humlum, D. R. Legates, S. Lüning, N. Scafetta, J.-E. Solheim, L. Szarka, H. van Loon, V. M. Velasco Herrera, R. C. Willson, H. Yan and W. Zhang (2021). How much has the Sun influenced Northern Hemisphere temperature trends? An ongoing debate. Research in Astronomy and Astrophysics, 21, 131. https://doi.org/10.1088/1674-4527/21/6/131. (🗄️)
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W. Soon, Ronan Connolly and M. Connolly (2015). Re-evaluating the role of solar variability on Northern Hemisphere temperature trends since the 19th century. Earth-Science Reviews, 150, 409-452. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.earscirev.2015.08.010. (🗄️).