adhered to philosopher Martin Buber's ideas about reuniting the three paths chosen by diaspora Jews: universalism, Zionism and Conservative Judaism. In his 1929 Avodah conference, he analyzed the ongoing Jewish resettlement into the Land of Israel, and investigated the causes of violent clashes between Jewish migrants and the Palestine Arabs. In other public statements, Relgis proudly stated his Judaic faith, noting that he had never actually left Judaism, "being integrated into its vast reality by the very reality of my own preoccupations, sociological and ethical, humanitarianist and pacifist." However, he explained to Iosif Gutman that joining a Zionist organization was not worth the effort, since membership was a form of captivity, and elsewhere suggested that Zionism was justified only as long as it did not follow "the restrictive methods of vulgar nationalism." The writer also described himself as committed to Romanian culture, and, as late as 1981, noted that Romanian was still his language of choice. His essays on Judaism (some of which were dedicated to his father David) speak about the threat of societal collapse, which the author connected with mankind's spiritual decline after World War I. His theory on "dehumanization" postulated: "the spiritual evolution of mankind has proceeded to descent just as mankind is progressing in material terms." As a reversal of this trend, Relgis proposed a return to the roots of Judaism, in whose monotheism and Messianism he decoded the basic representation of moral responsibility, and the immediate precursors of Christianity. The Romanian writer was interested in those aspects of Jewish ethics which anticipated humanitarianism or pacifism, citing the Bible as "that most humane book", and identifying himself with the lament of Malachi 2:10 ("Why do we deal treacherously every man against his brother, profaning the covenant of our fathers?"). He later wrote that Jews, and Israelis in particular, were entrusted with keeping alive "the ancient wisdom, poetry and faith", with creating "new values from the old ones". Defining in his own terms the relationship between Biblical proto-universalism and 20th century humanitarianism, Relgis wrote: "Judaism is comprised into modern humanitarianism like a flame within a crystal globe." In tandem, he rejected those aspects of Judaism or Christianity which he believed where bigotry, and his pacifist discourse criticized all religions as potential instigators or ideological props of hawkish rhetoric. He reserved special criticism for the notions of a "vengeful God" and "Jewish chosenness", arguing that they are "primitive",