ICH-ISRAEL
Intangible Cultural Heritage Center

​Between 4,000 and 5,000 Circassians live in Israel, most of them in Kfar Kama and Rehaniya[1]. They belong to the Circassian diaspora, which took shape after the Russian Empire conquered the northwest Caucasus and expelled most of its Circassian population in the 1860s[1]. The Circassians are a Northwest Caucasian people who speak the Circassian languages[3]. Most Circassians in Israel are Sunni Muslims. Their ancestors were resettled in the Galilee by the Ottoman Empire in the late 1870s[1][4].

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Circassia was Christian for about a thousand years. From the 16th to the 19th century, under the influence of the Crimean Tatars and Ottoman Turks, its people gradually converted to Islam[4][5]. Circassian resistance to Russian colonization lasted about a century. In the final stage of the war, from 1860 to 1864, Russian forces burned hundreds of villages and carried out ethnic cleansing against the entire population. Most survivors were expelled, and about one million found refuge in Ottoman lands[1].

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Many historians, along with Georgia’s parliament, describe these events as genocide. Estimates of the dead reach around 1.5 million[2]. The memory of the lost homeland remains strong among Circassians today[1]. The Ottomans settled the exiles in sparsely populated regions. Under Ottoman rule, the Circassians of the Galilee kept their distinct identity[1].

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Many First Aliyah immigrants who reached the Galilee spoke Russian, as many Circassians did at the time, which helped build cordial ties with the Yishuv and later with the Jewish community in Israel. Both peoples also understood what exile meant[4]. Today, the Circassian school system is separate from the Arab school system, and Hebrew is the language of instruction[1][6]. In 2011, the Israeli government approved NIS 680 million for Druze and Circassian communities, with a focus on education, employment, housing, and tourism[7].

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The Cultural Heritage of the Circassians in Israel

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Israel’s Circassian community is small, yet it stands among the most active in the diaspora when it comes to preserving its heritage[1]. Language comes first. Adyghe, which remained a spoken tongue until the 19th century, has 64 consonants and is taught in elementary and middle schools alongside Hebrew, English, and Arabic[1]. In Kfar Kama, children learn it at home before continuing in kindergarten and school, and road signs appear in Hebrew, Arabic, and Circassian[8].

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Daily life follows Xabze, a code of conduct shared by Muslim and Christian Circassians alike. It guides education, honor, marriage, and ceremonies, and anyone who ignores it bears hinap, or shame. Most Circassians marry within the community to protect this way of life. The Nart sagas still pass from one generation to the next[1].

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Music and dance keep these traditions visible. Villagers learn the dances at the community center, accompanied by the accordion-like pshina, a drum, and the castanet-like pkhachich[9]. Dancers wear the warrior’s coat, with its pockets for bullets across the breast[1].

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The villages carry this history in stone. In Kfar Kama’s Old Village, houses stand close together, a layout brought from the Caucasus for defense, and the mosque is built of basalt[1]. The Circassian Heritage Center occupies a 130-year-old building and offers guided tours, walks through the old alleys, and dance performances[10]. Rehaniya has a museum of its own[11].

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Memory remains part of this heritage. Every May 21, the Day of Mourning commemorates the genocide and exile, and the Kadouri and Sasa high schools, which serve both villages, mark the date[1]. In 2022, the UN World Tourism Organization named Kfar Kama one of its Best Tourism Villages[12].