When it came time to chose godparents for my daughter I gave it careful thought. I wanted her to have two godparents and wanted them to be people she could always turn to as I had a sense -- correct I might add -- that my daughter and I would fight often because we would be so much alike.

We do and we are.

Amy, my best friend since I was eleven, is visiting today. Mimi is camping with her father and brother. I am Jewish. I don't camp. I hotel. 

The night of Amy's arrival from Seattle we will have too much wine and laugh.

Come Sunday morning when my family returns, Mimi will jump into Amy's arms and shower her face with kisses. Amy will stare at her with wonder and joy, the same way I look at my daughter every day. I will watch the scene play out exactly as I had envisioned it seven years earlier. I can imagine it seven years from now. And years and years beyond that. 

I explained to Amy that her role wasn't just to buy gifts, but to be a second mother to Mimi. To bestow her wisdom to my daughter when she is perplexed and needs an opinion outside of her mother's. 

The same with my friend, Cally, who lives in Florida, and is an artist.  Art, besides being a rock star and a vet, appear to be Mimi's calling. When Cal calls now they talk intensely about drawing. Aunt Cal offering advice about blending colors and how to show perspective. 

My daughter is blessed to have two wonderful godmothers. I am lucky to have them as friends. For we love each other unconditionally.

It helps that both are hysterical, fun, playful, insightful and smart.

They'll always have us. And we will always have them.

By Dawn Yun 

I still think she does not know that she is Jewish.

I worry that our holidays as fun facsimile of religion is so ultra-light it seems like another version of Halloween. A gimmick, some funny food and a costume if we’re lucky. Once again, bad mommy has reared her head. My lack of resolve with my very Orthodox background has shown up in my consistent forgetting to teach my children that they are Jewish.

Now, I am an East Coast Jewish girl, daughter of a mom from Flatbush Avenue through and through. I am neurotic, talk too much and consider any headache fair warning of an imminent aneurysm. But it is a culture, rich and old and idiosyncratic that I feel a part of, not the group of holidays and face it, odd laws.

Old ladies from Miami arriving at my Bat Mitzvah in bright red lipstick, smelling like Chanel No.5 and hugging me with crushing love and Yiddish expressions, that is the true religion I feel in my bones.

The Old Testament God? I’ve had a hard relationship with him from the start. And Passover is a great example of my rather embarrassed feelings about this Jewish God that I can’t quite see selling my daughters on.

Look no further than those plagues. An escalating level of rage and bloodthirstiness to creepy proportions? Turning water to blood, covering people with boils and lice? This is not my definition of divine design! When people treat you poorly, stand back and watch the vengeful bloodbath roar down the street, sweetheart. Don’t worry, if life is hard, at least you’re backed by a moody, wrathful capricious force you can count on to help you… or not.

I will keep up my attempt to pass on Judaism to my kids. I am a card-carrying member of people who fight to the end for the freedom to be who they are, who can make a life out of a barren desert and a holiday around forgiving yourself once a year for falling short. But I wish for my kids to know a life without revenge, without having to feel better than somebody to know who you are, and without violence.

Amen and Happy Passover!

By Avvy Mar