When selecting the logo for SCJS's new online newsletter, the process was one of pure imagery.  Artistry reflected imagination.  As art, it can portray whatever the viewer may find in it.  Designers of the pomegranate logo selected this royally luscious fruit at first because of its historical connection between Mesopotamia and the Iberian Peninsula, and its later introduction to the Americas by Spanish settlers in the early 1500's.  It is mentioned by Homer in Greek mythology and included in the Hebrew Bible within poems written by Solomon.  It was cherished by Muhammad and included in Moorish architecture.  It appears in Christian artworks and was invoked as a symbol by Queen Isabella of Spain. 

The pomegranate is considered by many cultures and traditions to be a fertile symbol of life and renewal.  How fitting it is, then, to celebrate the pomegranate as a symbol of this society dedicated to researching, gathering, and disseminating a broad spectrum of information about the lives of crypto Jews throughout the past five centuries and today. 

Like the many-seeded pomegranate, Jews of the Iberian Peninsula were scattered across the world.  Hidden beneath a protective shell of secrecy, seeds of the banished and escaped multitudes took root, becoming early establishers of communities in the New World and in enclaves around the Old World, in North Africa and the Ottoman Empire.  Like the pomegranate tree, crypto Jews have survived harsh conditions, emerging from branches that appear lifeless during the deciduous winter season of diaspora. 

Thank you Marilyn Rose for painting the original pomegranates and creating the La Granada logo.

Please visit the SCJS website www.cryptojews.com