They invited Holdheim to serve as their rabbi, though he was often at odds with board led by Sigismund Stern. They instituted a drastically abridged prayerbook in German and allowed the abolition of most ritual aspects. Practice and liturgy were modified in numerous German congregations. Until the conferences, the only Reform prayerbooks ever printed in Europe were the two Hamburg editions. In the 1850s and 1860s, dozens of new prayerbooks which omitted or rephrased the cardinal theological segments of temple sacrifice, ingathering of exiles, Messiah, resurrection and angels – rather than merely abbreviating the service; excising non-essential parts, especially piyyutim, was common among moderate Orthodox and conservatives too – were authored in Germany for mass usage, demonstrating the prevalence of the new religious ideology. And yet, Geiger and most of the conferences' participants were far more moderate than Holdheim. While he administered in a homogeneous group, they had to serve in unified communities, in which traditionalists held separate services but still had to be respected. Changes were decidedly restrained. Liturgists were often careful when introducing their changes into the Hebrew text of prayers, less than with the German translation, and some level of traditional observance was maintained in public. Except Berlin, where the term "Reform" was first used as an adjective, the rest referred to themselves as "Liberal". Two further rabbinical conferences much later, in 1869 and 1871 at Leipzig and Augsburg respectively, were marked with a cautious tone. Their only outcome was the bypassing of the Loosening of the Shoe ceremony via a prenuptial agreement and the establishment of the Hochschule für die Wissenschaft des Judentums, though officially non-denominational, as a rabbinical seminary. While common, noted Michael Meyer, the designation "Liberal Jew" was more associated with political persuasion than religious conviction. The general Jewish public in Germany demonstrated little interest, especially after the 1876 law under which communal affiliation and paying parish taxes were no longer mandatory. Outside Germany, Reform had little to no influence in the rest of the continent. Radical lay societies sprang in Hungary during the 1848 Revolution but soon dispersed. Only in Germany, commented Steven M. Lowenstein, did the extinction of old Jewish community life lead to the creation of a new, positive religious ideology that advocated principled change. In Western and Central Europe, personal observance disappeared, but the public was not interested in bridging the gap between themselves and the official faith.