Though mostly secular, Tel Aviv has 544 active synagogues, including historic buildings such as the Great Synagogue, established in the 1930s. In 2008, a center for secular Jewish Studies and a secular yeshiva opened in the city. Tensions between religious and secular Jews before the gay pride parade ended in vandalism of a synagogue. The number of churches has grown to accommodate the religious needs of diplomats and foreign workers. The population consists of 93% Jewish, 1% Muslim, and 1% Christian. The remaining 5 percent are not classified by religion. Israel Meir Lau is chief rabbi of the city. Tel Aviv is an ethnically diverse city. The Jewish population, which forms the majority group in Tel Aviv consists of immigrants from all parts of the world and their descendants, including Ashkenazi Jews from Europe, North America, South America and South Africa, as well as Sephardic and Mizrahi Jews from Southern Europe, North Africa, India, Central Asia, West Asia,and the Arabian Peninsula. There are also a sizable number of Ethiopian Jews and their descendants living in Tel Aviv. In addition to Muslim and Arab Christian minorities in the city, several hundred Armenian Christians who reside in the city are concentrated mainly in Jaffa and some Christians from the former Soviet Union who immigrated to Israel with Jewish spouses and relatives. In recent years, Tel Aviv has received many non-Jewish migrants, students, foreign workers (documented and undocumented) and refugees. There are many refugees from African countries located near the Central
