Desert Passions

Desert Passions unfolds tales of wild, dramatic transformations that may occur to people in Sinai due to a mixture of cravings, sexual arousal, spontaneity, love, rapture, hopes and dreams - conflicting forces that are often at odds with our current lifestyles. New motivations appear, behavioral patterns might shift or completely change, sex and romance easily flourish, often unrestrained by former inhibitions. This explains why seekers trying to find their way in this puzzled, crazy world travel to the Sinai Desert where secret passions, hidden sexual fantasies, and lust that have been long subdued suddenly emerge and rule. Since ancient times, the Sinai Desert has been a place for spiritual and mental metamorphosis, initiating its powerful impact on anyone who wanders there. When Western ideas and habits first met traditional, tribal Bedouins after the Six-Day War in 1967, it created a unique cultural divergence. Many Westerners, too, have been deeply influenced by the raw nature revealed to them. Robert Bettelheim was born in Vienna, but after his parents fled the Nazi Anschluss of Austria to China, he grew up in Shanghai Ghetto under Japanese rule during WWII. Bettelheim later served in the Israeli army as a paratrooper, and soon became an ardent scuba diver on the enchanting shores of the Sinai Desert. A musicology graduate and teacher, the author lives with his wife in Kibbutz Zikim, which is not infrequently under shell fire. He has six grandchildren.