Pomegranates Are a Sapphic Jewish Icon
I've never felt more like a Jewess who loves other women than when I'm gently carving open a pomegranate and coaxing out its seeds.
The connection between Judaism and pomegranates is an easy one to make. Pomegranates have 613 seeds is often associated with the 613 mitzvot. As such, pomegranates are frequently used as ornaments to decorate Torah scrolls and make their way onto Judaica like dreidels, menorahs and mezuzot. Moreover, pomegranates are mentioned in multiple ancient Jewish texts. The Torah lists the pomegranate as one of ancient Israel’s seven species, as well as including the fruit in a few other parashot. Pomegranates are even featured in a story from the Talmud and the Song of Songs.
I’ve never felt more like a woman who loves other women than when I’m gently carving open a pomegranate and coaxing out its seeds. Sure, the fact that the interior of a pomegranate evokes yonic imagery and its juice menstrual blood is part of it. But not all lesbians have vaginas or periods. For me, the pomegranate’s truer sapphic nature is the sensuousness of it all. The feeling of pomegranate juice rolling down your chin and arms, staining your fingers magenta; the soft crunch of seeds meeting teeth and the pomegranates’ flesh giving way when pulled apart; the sweetness of the fruit which makes you purse your lips ever so slightly.
Of course, this kind of deep erotic sensuality can also exist between men and women. In the Song of Songs, the author (purportedly King Solomon) writes, “Your lips are like a crimson thread; your mouth is lovely. Your brow behind your veil [gleams] like a pomegranate split open.” But to me, this is the exception that makes the rule. My experience of love and sex with men has always felt like two waves crashing together. Which, to be clear, isn’t a bad thing. But my experience of love and sex with women and other queer people is ineffably softer, lusher and juicier. Like a pomegranate waiting to be plucked.
More broadly, fruit symbology just belongs to queer folk. Tracing its origins back to at least the 19th century, “fruit” or “fruity” have long been pejorative ways to describe gay people and particularly gay men. Now, in a moment where LGTBQ+ folks are reclaiming slurs for themselves, it just feels right to embrace the sapphic fruitiness of the pomegranate. Plus, show me a Jewish lesbian who doesn’t have or isn’t planning to get a pomegranate tattoo. I’ll wait.
No matter how long the trend lasts, pomegranates will always be a symbol for sapphic Jewesses and Jewex everywhere.
