Britain, Switzerland and France during the 1960s. Successive periods of political and social turmoil in the region during the 1980s and 1990s brought new waves of Kurdish refugees, mostly from Iran and Iraq under Saddam Hussein, came to Europe. In recent years, many Kurdish asylum seekers from both Iran and Iraq have settled in the United Kingdom (especially in the town of Dewsbury and in some northern areas of London), which has sometimes caused media controversy over their right to remain. There have been tensions between Kurds and the established Muslim community in Dewsbury, which is home to very traditional mosques such as the Markazi. Since the beginning of the turmoil in Syria many of the refugees of the Syrian Civil War are Syrian Kurds and as a result many of the current Syrian asylum seekers in Germany are of Kurdish descent. There was substantial immigration of ethnic Kurds in Canada and the United States, who are mainly political refugees and immigrants seeking economic opportunity. According to a 2011 Statistics Canada household survey, there were 11,685 people of Kurdish ethnic background living in Canada, and according to the 2011 Census, more than 10,000 Canadians spoke Kurdish language. In the United States, Kurdish immigrants started to settle in large numbers in Nashville in 1976, which is now home to the largest Kurdish community in the United States and is nicknamed Little Kurdistan. Kurdish population in Nashville is estimated to be around 11,000. Total number of ethnic Kurds residing in the United States is estimated by the US Census Bureau to be around 15,000. The Japanese government has not granted refugee status to any of the Kurds in Japan who usually file it citing human rights issues and persecution in Turkey and resulted in them living in destitution, with no education and having no legal residency status. A clash took place outside the Turkish embassy in Tokyo in October 2015 between Kurds and Turks in Japan which began when the Turks assaulted the Kurds after a Kurdish party flag was shown at the embassy. Related ethno-religious groups Kurdish Jews Almost all of the Kurdish Jews of north Iraq, who were numbered around 30,000 in 1950, were evacuated to Israel during operation Ezra and Nehemiah. A significant portion of those Jews self-identified as part of the Kurdish nation, despite their Jewish ethnicity and religion, and some still consider themselves as Kurds. All together