of Zamocka Street, where the Hotel Ibis is now located. Influence against changes in Judaism Sofer led the community of Pressburg for 33 years, until his death in 1839. It was his influence and determination that kept the Reform movement out of the city. From the late 18th century onwards, movements which eventually developed into Reform Judaism began to develop. Synagogues subscribing to these new views began to appear in centres such as Berlin and Hamburg. Sofer was profoundly opposed to the reformers, and attacked them in his speeches and writings. For example, in a responsum of 1816, he forbade the congregation in Vienna to allow a performance in the synagogue of a cantata they had commissioned from the composer Ignaz Moscheles, because it would involve a mixed choir. In the same spirit, he contested the founders of the Reformschule (Reform synagogue) in Pozsony, which was established in the year 1827. For Sofer, Judaism as previously practiced was the only form of Judaism acceptable. In his view, the rules and tenets of Judaism had never changed — and cannot ever change. This became the defining idea for the opponents to Reform, and in some form, it has continued to influence the Orthodox response to innovation in Jewish doctrine and practice. Sofer applied a pun to the Talmudic term chadash asur min haTorah, "'new' is forbidden by the Torah" (referring literally to eating chadash, "new grain", before the Omer offering is given) as a slogan heralding his opposition to any philosophical, social or practical change to customary Orthodox practice. He did not allow the addition of any secular studies to the curriculum of his Pressburg Yeshiva. Universal Israelite Congress The Universal Israelite Congress of 1868-69 in Pest was influential in affecting the direction of Judaism in Europe. To try to unify all streams of Judaism under one constitution, the Orthodox offered the Shulchan Aruch and surrounding codes as the ruling code of law and observance. The reformists dismissed this notation and in response, many Orthodox rabbis resigned from the Congress to form their own social and political groups. Hungarian Jewry split into two major institutionally sectarian groups, Orthodox and Neolog. Some communities refused to join either of the groups and called themselves Status Quo. Actions of students and descendants Sofer's most notable student, Rabbi Moshe Schick, together with Sofer's sons, the rabbis Shmuel Binyamin and Shimon, took an active role in