It's August, and you know what that means: It's time to buy some handicrafts. The beloved Jerusalem tradition Chutzot Hayotzer, an international arts and crafts fair encompassing hundreds of Israeli and foreign artists and artisans selling their wares and dozens of musical performances, is returning to the Sultan's Pool. It's the largest cultural attraction of the summer, so if you're around, you've got no excuse not to go.

The focus of the fair is everything handmade and aesthetically pleasing, from jewelry to woodworking to sculpture to religious artifacts, with special attention paid to the work of the 150 Israeli artists participating this year, many of whom maintain a permanent presence in the Chutzot Hayotzer artists' colony during the off-season. It's all for sale, and it's mostly one-of-a-kind.

And Yitzhak Moshik-Levy's carping notwithstanding, the list of international participants is impressive, a veritable who's who of countries that have diplomatic relations with Israel (and two that don't), including most of South America, much of Europe, much of East Asia, all the 'stans in Central Asia, a smattering of Africa, Jordan as the lone representative of the 'hood, and more, all selling their respective traditional handicrafts. Will the Nepali delegation defend their nation's honor by tramping all over the city blazed on hash and half-baked mysticism like Israeli twentysomethings do in Kathmandu? Probably not, but worth watching out for anyway. Also worth watching out for is the Korean delegation, staging a dance performance drawing on both traditional dance and martial arts on Wednesday and Thursday, which rates as a vast improvement over the regular artistic offering of the Korean community in Jerusalem, namely singing enthusiastically in Korean about Jesus on Ben Yehuda St.

But what really makes the price of admission worth it are the nightly concerts, featuring some of the brightest stars of Israeli music, carefully selected to make sure every segment of the national pop-listening audience is covered: Rami Fortis, Shlomi Shabat, Mosh Ben Ari, Ethnix, Aviv Geffen, Meir Banai, Gali Atari, Yizhar Ashdot, Boaz Sharabi and Berry Sakharof. Non-mainstream concerts, from flamenco to jazz, also take place nightly, and, in a terrible bit of planning, overlap the main stage pop performances.

And there's more: children's theater and activites. Food stalls. Workshops. Even if for some reason you hate handicrafts, you'll find a way to amuse yourself.