The last of the important rabbis to come here from a Western European country was Alexander Kohut (b. in Hungary, 1842; d. in New York, 1894), the lexicographer and Orientalist, whose “Aruch Completum” (Vienna, 1878–92), to which he devoted twenty-five years of his life, is still the standard work on the subject. The first four volumes were printed during his residence in Hungary, where he was rabbi first at Stuhlweissenburg, then at Fünfkirchen, and lastly at Grosswardein (1880–84). The last four appeared during his sojourn in America, whither he came in 1885, when he was chosen rabbi of Congregation Ahabat Chesed in New York. He was at once recognized as an eminent conservative leader, and was associated with Morais in founding the Jewish Theological Seminary, in which he became professor of Talmudic methodology. In March, 1894, while delivering a eulogy on Kossuth, he was stricken in the pulpit, and died after lingering several weeks. A volume containing memorial addresses and tributes to his memory was published by his congregation in 1894. Another volume, containing essays by forty-four noted scholars in Europe and America, entitled “Semitic Studies in Memory of Rev. Dr. Alexander Kohut,” was published in Berlin in 1897 by his son, George Alexander Kohut (born in Stuhlweissenburg, 1874), the bibliographer and writer on Jewish subjects. Extreme Russian Orthodoxy asserted itself in New York about the middle of the nineteenth century. There were numerous Jews from Russia in the country long before that, and the immigration from Russian-Poland increased heavily after 1845, when Jews in the Kingdom of Poland were first conscripted in the army, in violation of a promise made by the Government that this was to be postponed until they were granted equal rights with non-Jewish subjects. The first Russian congregation in America was founded June 4, 1852, with twelve members, which soon increased to about twenty-three, several of whom, however, were natives of Germany who were dissatisfied with the Reform tendencies of the congregations to which most of their countrymen belonged.[33] The first place of worship was in a garret of the house, No. 83 Bayard street, for which a monthly rental of eight dollars was paid. B. Lichtenstein was the first Parnass or president, I. Cohen the secretary, H. S. Isaacs the reader and Abraham Joseph Ash (Eisenstadt? b. in Semyatich, Russia, 1813; d. in New York, 1888), who came to America in that year and was a Talmudical scholar, acted as rabbi without compensation.