There are between 4,000 and 5,000 Circassians living in Israel. Kfar Kama and Rehaniya are the two main towns where they reside. The Circassians of Israel are a part of the Circassian diaspora, which emerged as a result of the Russian Empire's 19th-century genocide against the Circassians during the Russo-Circassian War. The Circassians are an ethnic group of Northwest Caucasians who speak the Circassian languages and are originally from the historical country-region of Circassia in the North Caucasus. The majority of Circassians in Israel are mostly Sunni Muslims. They are descended from two Circassian diaspora communities that the Ottoman Empire relocated to Galilee in the 1870s.

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For a millennium, Circassia was a Christian region, but, from the sixteenth to the nineteenth centuries, the Crimean Tatars and Ottoman Turks influenced them to convert to Islam. After being driven from their land to the northwest Caucasus, the Circassians moved to the Middle East. The beginning of the Russo-Circassian war according to most historians was in 1763 with the construction of the first Russian fortress in the northeast of Circassia. The whole Circassian population was nearly wiped out as a result of the Czar's soldiers' pursuit, burning, rape, and murder of the Circassians during a 101-year conflict. It was the largest humanitarian catastrophe of the 19th century and the first genocide in contemporary history, with an estimated 1.5 million Circassians killed. Over two-thirds of Circassia's population perished. Circassians never forgot their homeland, which they constantly yearned for. The Circassians were assimilated into the Ottoman Empire and settled in inhabited regions. The exiles from Circassia settled in Galilee, in Kfar Kama in 1876 and in Rehaniya in 1878. Throughout the Ottoman Empire, Circassians stayed to themselves and retained their distinct identity, even establishing their own courts in which they would not tolerate any foreign influence. 

Because many of the First Aliyah immigrants from Russia who landed in the Galilee spoke the same language, Circassians maintained cordial ties with the Yishuv and later the Jewish community in Israel. Jews and Circassians shared empathy for one another's exile experiences. There are 656 Circassian language speakers listed in the 1922 census. The freedom to keep its own educational system outside the Department of Arab Affairs of the Israeli government was granted to the Circassian minority in 1976. To preserve its culture for future generations, the village runs its own independent educational system. The Knesset enacted a measure in 2011 allocating NIS 680 million for Circassia's infrastructure, tourism, and education.