CAT

The cat is not mentioned in the Bible although cats were domesticated in ancient Egypt, as is evidenced by the fact that vast numbers of mummified cats have been found in tombs at Beni Hasan and elsewhere. In rabbinic literature there are few references to the cat, which was apparently not bred to any great extent, other animals being preferred for catching mice and snakes. It was permitted to breed cats in Ereẓ Israel together with other animals that rid the house of pests (BK 80a–b). Wild cats abounded and they preyed on fowl (TJ Pe'ah 3:8, 17d). In Babylonia the cat was highly regarded as a means of ridding the home of poisonous snakes, and it was even stated that entering a house after dark in which there is no cat was dangerous, for fear of being bitten by a snake (Pes. 112b). The cat was praised for its extreme cleanliness, and it was said: "If the Torah had not been given, we could have learnt modesty from the cat" (Er. 100b). A mosaic, uncovered at Nirim in the Negev, on which there is the figure of a cat, testifies to its having been bred in Ereẓ Israel in Byzantine times. Some moralists of the Ghetto period recommended that cats or other domestic pet be kept in the home in order to accustom children to fulfill the mitzvah of feeding animals before partaking of food themselves. The Italian loan-bankers of the Renaissance period were often bound by their contract to keep cats in order to control the mice and other pests which might do damage to the pledges in their care. -BIBLIOGRAPHY: Lewysohn, Zool, 74–76; Tristram, Nat Hist, 66f.; F.S. Bodenheimer, Ha-Ḥai be-Arẓot ha-Mikra, 2 (1956), 372–5. (Jehuda Feliks)