Girls camp Ginsburg’s first chance to be leader
Then known as Kiki, late justice shared in empowerment, sports
Minerva Since Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s death
Sept. 18, she has been memorialized as a pioneer on the bench, an advocate for women’s rights, a cultural icon and an opera devotee. But in her youth, she was Kiki, a happy camper.
From 1937 to 1951, Ginsburg spent 7 ½ weeks each summer at Camp Che-na-wah, a predominantly Jewish, all-girls camp nestled along the eastern shores of Lake Balfour in the Adirondacks. And there in the Essex County wilds, co-director Barbara Wortman said Ginsburg cultivated her trademark independence and a sense of duty to the whole.
“She grew up in the city, Brooklyn,” Wortman said. “Going to
camp gave her a chance to get out of the city, come up to a beautiful part of the country and learn new activities. It opened her eyes to a whole new world.”
As she grew as a camper, first arriving as a fledgling 4-year-old and faithfully returning until she was 18, Ginsburg excelled in watersports, mainly swimming and water skiing, as well as riding horses and dabbling in arts and crafts. Ginsburg was known by her nickname given to her by her sister who said Ginsburg kicked a lot as a baby.
Wortman’s mother-inlaw, Ruth Wortman, was Ginsburg’s swim counselor at Che-na-wah. She remembers swimming across the lake with Ginsburg, something campers are no longer allowed to do. Now at 91 and living in an assisted living facility in Yonkers, her memories fade in and out. But she still remembers the day she met Ginsburg. Ruth
Wortman, then going by her maiden name Lowenfish, was 16. Ginsburg was 12.
“I met this little girl at the lake and she was beautiful,” Ruth Wortman said. “She was a good swimmer, too.”
Her then counselor recalls her as “very friendly, wonderful.”
“She was involved with all the activities,” Ruth Wortman said. “I’m so proud to know her.”
Ginsburg, who died at age 87, hit her camp stride in 1948 at age 15. For one week, she was designated as “camper rabbi” and offered the sermon at Saturday morning’s Shabbat service. No one seems to remember on what topic she spoke, but the outdoor podium where she stood remains today where each week another girl is chosen for the role.
That was around that same time, Barbara Wortman said, Ginsburg’s mother was diagnosed with cancer and Che-naWah became a refuge.
“She was able to get away from that for a little bit,” Barbara Wortman said. “She had friends here.”
Ginsburg’s connection to Che-na-wah starts with her uncle and aunt, Chuck and Cornel Amster, who built the camp in 1923. Chuck Amster, brother to Ginsburg’s mother, sought to find a place where his children could explore nature, live collectively and excel independently. Ginsburg joined in with her cousins at Che-na-wah and its neighboring Camp Baco for boys, until she was 18 when she became a camp counselor.
In 1954, the year Ginsburg graduated from Cornell University, Ruth Wortman and her husband, Mel, became partners with the Amsters at Baco. When Ginsburg’s Aunt Cornel, known as Mother Cornel, died, the Wortmans assumed ownership of the boys camp. The Wortmans’ son, Bob, and his wife, Barbara, bought the camp in 1976.
Former Che-na-wah camper and counselor Alice Sternin and her
husband, Lester, partnered with the Amsters on the girls camp in 1959, the year that Ginsburg became a law clerk in
U.S. District Court, in the Southern District of New York. The Sternins took full ownership of the girls camp in 1961.
Ronnie Silver, Sternin’s daughter, said that her mother always remembered Ginsburg fondly and was proud that “Kiki was a Che-na-wah girl.”
“The philosophy of the camp was women can do anything,” Silver said.
“So much of the Justice was instilled at camp. It was always taught to us that there is nothing girls couldn’t do. Camp empowered us and for someone extremely bright and curious, that was important.”
The Sternins sold CheNa-wah to the Wortmans in 1986. With the death of Bob Wortman in 2018,
Barbara Wortman and her daughter, Allison, carry on the family tradition as codirectors of both camps.
Throughout those years of transition at the camp, Ginsburg was a rising star.
According to a CNN timeline, she was, among other things, a professor of law at Rutgers and Columbia University schools of law, a general counsel for the ACLU and a judge with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia. In 1993, she was nominated by then President Bill Clinton and sworn in as a Supreme Court justice.
Despite her fame — and in recent years known to young fans as the Notorious RBG — she never forgot the years she spent at Che-na-wah. Barbara Wortman said Ginsburg, who could instantly recall the camp song, remained in touch over the years, including a 1995 visit with her family.
“She wanted her family to see the camp,” Wortman said. “She never sent her children here, but she had great memories of the
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The philosophy of the camp was women can do anything. So much of the Justice was instilled at camp. It was always taught to us that there is nothing girls couldn’t do. Camp empowered us and for someone extremely bright and curious, that was important.” — Ronnie Silver