Kanaani: The Royal Heirs to King Solomon’s Feline Throne

An ancient Jewish legend, a breed born in Jerusalem, and the meaning of a royal inheritance.

By Rabbi Mikhail Salita — Rav Papa Kanaani

A golden cat sits on the fifth step of King Solomon’s throne, facing a golden rooster.

That detail in a Jewish legend has stayed with me. As a rabbi, animal chaplain, and custodian of Kanaani cats, I find in it a meeting point between the texts I study and the animals I care for.

We readily imagine lions beside a king. A cat invites us to look more closely.

The Tanakh describes Solomon’s ivory throne, overlaid with gold, its six steps, and its lions in Melakhim I (I Kings) 10:18–20. The golden cat on the fifth step appears in Targum Sheni on Esther 1:2, an Aramaic rendering of the Book of Esther with extensive aggadic elaboration. Its account of Solomon’s throne places a golden cat opposite a golden domestic fowl. Versions and translations differ in some of the other animal pairings; the six pairs below follow Nissan Mindel’s retelling, “King Solomon’s Throne” (Kehot Publication Society):

1. On the first step: a lion opposite an ox.

2. On the second: a wolf opposite a lamb.

3. On the third: a tiger opposite a camel.

4. On the fourth: an eagle opposite a peacock.

5. On the fifth: a cat opposite a rooster.

6. On the sixth: a hawk opposite a dove.

Cats’ ability to hunt snakes and lizards is documented in scientific literature. For me, the golden cat points toward living cats in the royal household. I find it hard to imagine palace life without them: cats watching the storerooms, hunting mice, and confronting small snakes that might enter the grounds. In my understanding of that world, their presence would have been a household necessity, a matter of protection and survival. I believe Solomon had cats, perhaps several of them.

And I believe he loved them deeply. I read the golden cat in the throne tradition as an expression of affection as well as respect. To give a cat such a place beside the king associated with the greatest wisdom suggests to me an animal whose presence was valued and cherished.

I also imagine that affection as a family tradition, passed from David to Solomon. I believe cats had a place in David’s household too, and I wonder whether the same was true of Saul’s. These are my personal convictions and interpretations of the tradition; the throne account itself does not document living palace cats or the private affections of those kings.

For anyone inclined to dismiss cats as creatures beneath religious attention, that is worth considering.

Jewish tradition also invites us to learn from them. In the Talmud, Eruvin 100b, Rabbi Yochanan teaches that, even without the Torah, we could have learned modesty from a cat. The familiar animal becomes a teacher. Its ordinary behavior deserves observation.

The golden cat gives me another way to think about that attention. A creature easily overlooked in a courtyard becomes visible beside a throne. What might change if we looked at the living animal with some of the care we give its golden image?

For me, that question leads to Jerusalem. The City of David is the ancient heart of Jerusalem, within the modern city. This shared geography is central to how I understand the Kanaani’s inheritance.

The Kanaani is a modern breed developed by the artist Doris Pollatschek in Jerusalem in the 1990s. Accounts of its foundation describe crossings involving the African wildcat, Felis lybica, and local domestic cats, with other domestic breeds contributing to its development. Its history therefore includes actual feline ancestry as well as a connection to a particular place. The breed’s development and its WCF standard belong to the history of modern cat breeding.

A modern breed has ancestors older than its name and standard. The Kanaani’s development in the 1990s involved selecting and combining existing feline lineages, including local cats and wildcat ancestry. Its roots reach into the animal life of the region, even though the particular combination that defines the breed is modern.

Jerusalem brings these two stories together: the royal city of Solomon and the birthplace of the Kanaani breed. For me, this is an inheritance of place as well as ancestry.

This is why I see Kanaani cats as the heirs to King Solomon’s royal cats—the cats of his court in Jerusalem—carrying that royal legacy forward in a breed born in the same city.

Their inheritance, in my imagination, has several dimensions: ancestry, homeland, and spiritual meaning. Their wildcat and domestic foundations give the connection a biological dimension. Jerusalem gives it a home. The golden cat of the throne gives it an image through which to tell a new story.

No surviving pedigree connects a Kanaani to a particular cat in Solomon’s court. “Royal blood” is the language of the literary tradition I am creating, inspired by those real roots and that Jewish legend.

Jewish tradition itself connects Adam with this place. Pirkei DeRabbi Eliezer, chapter 20, recounts that after leaving Gan Eden, Adam settled on Mount Moriah, near the entrance to the garden. Mount Moriah is the Temple Mount in Jerusalem. This gives the connection between Adam and Jerusalem a foundation in midrash.

My literary genealogy begins with a first cat beside Adam and continues through a cat at King Solomon’s court to the Kanaani of today. Within that imagined family, the connection is one of descent as well as spirit: each generation inherits something of the one before it. The cat beside Adam and the family line linking it to Solomon’s cat are my creative additions.

I am currently writing a children’s story about a cat at King Solomon’s court and how he inspired the king to place a golden cat on his throne. The story grows from the traditional image, imagining the living companion behind it. I am submitting the manuscript to a literary agent, with the hope that it will find a home at a major publishing house. Simon & Schuster or Penguin Random House would be a dream. For now, I am taking that first step and looking forward to seeing where it leads.

That is what I mean when I call the Kanaani a royal breed. Its actual ancestry and Jerusalem origins meet the royal inheritance I give it in my stories. Through this connection, I want children to explore how friendship, courage, and responsibility can pass from one generation to another.

There is also something compelling about the golden cat facing the rooster.

I read that arrangement as an invitation to imagine coexistence. The two creatures remain distinct, each with its own nature, yet both belong within the same royal scene. To me, it echoes the hope expressed in Isaiah 11:6–9, where the wolf and the lamb inhabit a world freed from harm. This is my reflection on the image, rather than an explanation supplied by Mindel’s account.

Such hope asks something of us now. We can make our homes safer for the animals entrusted to us. We can teach children to notice fear, respect boundaries, and respond gently to a creature that depends on them.

My work with Kanaani cats gives these thoughts a daily form. Their future depends on patient care, responsible breeding, and people willing to become their custodians. A beautiful ancestral story carries an obligation to the living animals whose story we are telling.

Calling them royal heirs is my way of drawing attention to that obligation. Every cat deserves care; the Kanaani’s particular history gives me a particular responsibility.

The golden cat has its place in the legend of Solomon’s throne. Its imagined heirs have a place beside us.

We are the ones who must make that place worthy of them.