Summer festival season has wound down, and the citywide High Holidays bashes are still a couple months off, but don't mistake this for the doldrums: even during the hottest days of a hot summer, Jerusalem and her many fine institutions continue to offer more culture than a Tel Avivi could shake an unearned sense of superiority at. Dig:

• Comedian Nadav Bosem and uni-monikered singer Rili are mounting a comedic/musical tribute to the popular Israeli entertainers of the '50s and '60s tonight at Beit Shmuel.

• Galilean oud master Haytham Safia and his band will take audiences to the sort of nightclub where classical Arab music and Western jazz get smashed on arak and make out, also tonight at the Confederation House.

• Escape Jerusalem (temporarily, of course) for the sylvan charms of Nataf and the French-inspired Hebrew chansons of singer/songwriter/storyteller Yael Badihi on Friday morning.

• Also on Friday morning, some of Jerusalem's finest poets will be gathering at the Confederation House for a Euterpean tribute to the late Israeli poet Yair Hurwitz on the 20th anniversary of his death.

• Join Beit Shmuel Saturday morning for a tour of the various outposts of foreign countries in and around Jerusalem's Old City - like traveling abroad for only 95 NIS.

• Once Shabbat makes its timely exit, don't miss the opportunity to see Israeli funkateers Hadag Nachash live within the intimate confines of the Yellow Submarine.

• Take the kids to the Israel Museum Sunday for a taste of what childhood was like in the austerity-stricken early days of the country with a hands-on exhibit of bygone childhood pursuits. Maybe they'll appreciate their lives more afterwards?

• For more adult-oriented museum time, swing by the Jerusalem Artists House for a new exhibit by respected Israeli artists Avner Katz, Gustavo Sagorsky and Chava Epstein.

• Give yourself a little grounding in pressing international affairs Monday by attending Foreign Ministry official Menashe Amir's lecture on the Iranian people at the Hebrew University.

• On Monday evening, reserve a seat at the Jerusalem Theatre for this season's premiere of the theatrical version of Savyon Liebrecht's novella "Apples from the Desert."

• Wrap yourself in the warm, if sometimes limiting embrace of the Jerusalem Anglo community at Mike's Place Tuesday night for some musical democracy in action: a freestyle, take-all-comers jam session. Bring your axe, as long as you like guitar rock and Shlomo Carlebach niggunim.

• Summer Nights continues on Wednesday with world music outfit the Shem Tov Levi Ensemble playing beneath the stars in Liberty Bell Park.

Must... keep... party... going....

As food and gas prices rise worldwide, and with Israelis (and Jews in general) always looking for a free ride (isn't that what the stereotype is all about?), the Chofshi Bakayitz (Summer Nights) series comes as a welcome breath of FREE fresh air in this hot summer. Founded in 2003 as an attempt to reinstate Jerusalem as the cultural capital of Israel and to provide residents with hope in the dark days of the intifada, the series now attracts culture hounds from all sectors and locales.

"It was important for me that people outside of Jerusalem come to the series as well, so we advertised all over the country," says Uri Strissover, cultural director of the Jerusalem Foundation, which sponsors the series. "I want people across the country to think of Jerusalem as a place of quality culture."

In keeping with its mandate to provide cultural opportunities to all of Jerusalem's residents, Chofshi Bakayitz offers a wide range of ways to spend those hot summer nights and days. The Yellow Submarine-hosted triple threat of Friday afternoon music sessions – rock, electro and world – was designed to attract the city's youth (the final session will be held this Friday). A number folk music and dance performances in the city's Gan Hapa'amon (Liberty Bell Park), on the other hand, have catered to those who still think Israeli culture means dancing the hora and/or singing in unison.

After the Bridge of Strings opening, in which young female dancers were asked at the last minute to wear more modest clothing, Jerusalemite was curious as to whether the Chofshi Bakayitz series encountered similar pressures from certain members of the Jerusalem leadership. The answer, according to Mr. Strissover is a resounding "no" - the reason being that the series purposely divvies up its events specifically so that all of Jerusalem's various religious and ethnic groups may take part in the series without having to attend events that they find offensive. An east Jerusalem street party featuring musical performances and family friendly activities attracted the city's Arab residents while an art exhibit at Oman, a charedi art school, is set to provide Jerusalem's ultra-Orthodox residents with a day of culture that excludes scantily clad dancers. (The exhibit's grand opening takes place on Wednesday, July 14 at 8pm and the runs through July 30.)

The series closes out this Saturday, with yet another art exhibit - this time at the Artist's House.

Courtesy photo of Onili, a cheeky electro-pop songstress who played at the Yellow Submarine's recent electro-themed Friday session under the Chofshi Bakayitz umbrella.

This week in Jerusalem? Well, it's like any other week in Jerusalem, save two major differences: the booze flows freer and the movies are less lowest-common-denominator. So pour out your 10-shekel Hebron Vineyards "wine" and spit symbolically in the direction of the cramped seats and terrible screens at the Rav Chen, because this week is all about the Jerusalem Wine Festival and the Jerusalem Film Festival.

• The Film Festival starts today and lasts well into next week, ten whole days in which Jerusalem's cinemas give their screens over to the artsy, indie and well-regarded. Of course, Jerusalemite will be keeping you updated on the best of the Fest throughout the week, so stay tuned.

• And since this week is devoted to appreciating the refined and sublime, you may as well kick it off tonight with that most refined and sublime of musics: jazz. Well-regarded Israeli jazz songstress Hagit Goldberg and her band are putting a bit of the devil in all those nice Mormon boys and girls at Brigham Young University - and like any great temptation, it's free.

• If the blue notes and suspended ninths of jazz don't move you - if indeed your heart pulses to a more robotic sort of groove - don't fail to hie your cyborg self down to the Yellow Submarine for a night of electro by a deeply-stacked lineup of Jerusalem's finest electronic music artists.

• On Friday morning, get a firsthand look at the oft-overlooked history of one of Jerusalem's most interesting neighborhoods: Mamilla. It's not just a ritzy mall and an empty luxury neighborhood - once, the wedge of city tucked between downtown and the Old City was a literal war zone. Find out more by joining up with the Tower of David Museum's tour group.

• If you've got bored kids between the ages of 3 and 7 in need of entertainment on Saturday - and if there's anything reliable about kids between 3 and 7, it's their constant need for entertainment - see how they like The Marzipan Fairy, another puppet production from the Train Theater. Alternately, if you or your kids are kind of unnerved by the Train Theater's leering wooden puppets (and who could blame you?), take them to Beit Shmuel for a whole day of old-school Israeli arts, crafts and activities.

• Bid farewell to Shabbat on Saturday night by digging on Renaissance man pop star Boaz Sharabi, performing in support of his new album Breathe at the Jerusalem Theatre.

• On Sunday Brigham Young University offers another tantalizingly free opportunity to see one of the acclaimed Arab classical musicians the Galilee keeps pumping out, in this case Nazareth piano prodigy Bishara Harouny.

• Swing by the Israel Museum on Monday (or any other day during the month) to peruse a display of landscapes rendered entirely from recycled waste. On (recycled) paper, it's a children's event, but adults - especially the eco-conscious - should find plenty to appreciate.

• Or expand your minds either by checking out hometown heroes the Kolben Dance Company performing their multidisciplinary Plus-Minus (for free) at the Gerard Bechar Center or intellectually grooving on soul-patched, internationally acclaimed local boy jazz hornblower Avishai Cohen and his trio at the Yellow Sub.

• The Wine Festival starts tapping the barrels on Tuesday evening (and runs through Thursday evening). 55 NIS gets you entry and a bottomless wine glass, with over thirty Israeli wineries clamoring for the opportunity to fill it for you. Let them. Sweet Lord, let them.

• If you can get over that terrible red wine hangover you'll no doubt be nursing after you wake up facedown somewhere around the Wohl Rose Garden midday Wednesday, stumble over to the Bible Lands Museum to hear an English lecture delivered by the engaging Professor Wayne Horowitz of the Hebrew University. The subject? Cuneiform. It's supposed to be "exhilarating," which is asking a lot from inscrutable little triangles.

And all of you remember, oenophiles and undiscerning quaffers alike: drinking and driving anywhere is a bad idea. With Israeli drivers, it's suicide. So take a cab home, because we want to see you here next week.

Photo courtesy of Orly Segal Communications.

Thursday marks the beginning of the Jerusalem Film Festival. Now in it's 25th year, the Jerusalem Film Festival selected the family friendly WALL-E to open the festival in the coveted Sultan's Pool screening. A curious selection since this is the second year in a row a Pixar flick has opened the festival, but it doesn't really matter what film opens the festival. Waterworld would seem like Citizen Kane with the backdrop of the Old City. The JFF runs from July 10th through the 19th with showings at cinemas across the city featuring international feature films, documentaries and shorts with a strong focus on Jewish and Israeli films.

The guest list is quite impressive this year with uber-producer Mike Medavoy and director Michael Winterbottom. Jerusalemite is fairly stoked that the festival will be welcoming John Malkovich, who will be taking questions after a showing of the movie he is most closely associated with these days, Being John Malkovich.

A new welcome addition to this year's festival is "Children in the Festival," featuring numerous children's films and workshops. A full schedule can be found here.

If film ain't your bag and you just want to enjoy the beautiful Jerusalem evening weather with some tunes be sure to check out the free nightly live music at the Cinemateque plaza. Performances run every night of the festival from the 11th through the 19th, starting at 21:30 and feature Jazz, Classical and rock. Click here for a full schedule.

Apropos to a film festival taking place in Jerusalem, "Jerusalem Moments - Small Moments of a Different Jerusalem" features the films of ten Israeli and Palestinian directors each offering their personal perspective of on life between the city's eastern and western sectors.

There are also many other sub-festivals and series, including Moonlight Cinema, the Conference of The Forum for the Preservation of Audio-Visual Memory in Israel, and an Exodus tribute.

The festival might not be as important as its planners tout it as being, but this year, many movies are set to screen here as a stop in-between Cannes and Toronto, a not unimpressive coup.

And there's still a downright staggering array of movies of all genres from all around the world, reaffirming the festival's place as one of the premiere brand names on Jerusalem's cultural calendar.

More coverage of the Jerusalem Film Festival, including an exclusive interview with its director, continues on Jerusalemite in the coming days.

Arik Sinai: the Cohen Ranger

Jerusalemites have shouldered more than enough sorrow to justify the sense of fatalism that often seems to hang over the city, but that fatalism, fostered by years of conflict and strife, is of a peculiar sort; instead of inspiring apathy, it seems to fire city residents' desire to live for and fully appreciate the moment. Jerusalemites may resign themselves to the possibility of lives being cruelly stolen away, but they steadfastly refuse to resign themselves to the possibility of lives misspent. It's that aspect of the Jerusalem character, more than any physical defense, that keeps the city alive and ensures it remains the place we love. So when tragedy strikes, as it did this week, perhaps the best way to respond is in the Jerusalemite manner: honor the dead by honoring life. This weekend, thousands of city residents will go out and celebrate the simple fact of being alive in the Holy City. Join them.

Among your many options this week for celebration:

• Tonight marks the beginning of the free Summer Nights concert and performance series, taking place all over the city. Everything's kicking off with a performance by the Kolben Dance Company twirling through 18th century waltzes pumped out by the Israeli Camerata Orchestra.

• If waltzing ain't your thing, you can catch Yaron Peer at the Confederation House, playing an eclectic set of pan-Middle Eastern acoustic music.

• Summer Nights continues, in a contradictory fashion, on Friday afternoon with a series of free rock shows at the Yellow Submarine by a number of Israelis bands. After all, the best way to acknowledge American Independence Day is to revel in the country's greatest gift to the world: rock 'n' roll.

• Friday afternoon also plays host to the Arabesque Dance Troupe, performing authentic midriff-baring Middle Eastern dance routines at Beit Shmuel.

• On Saturday, entertain (and secretly educate) the kids with Where Is Mrs. Gabbai?, a musical tour through Yemin Moshe brought to you by the Train Theater.

• After the close of Shabbat on Saturday night, you can witness a unique instance of international (and inter-Jewish) cultural exchange when aged Israeli rock god Arik Sinai runs through a set of Leonard Cohen covers at the Yellow Submarine. Can he out-Cohen Jeff Buckley? Only one way to find out.

• If Cohen's moody oeuvre doesn't do anything for you, perhaps you'd feel more comfortable with Barbra and Bette - or at least, their songs (and others') as interpreted by Adina Feldman and her band. Wine and cheese included.

• Catch Restless, a recent Israeli/French collaborative film, in a special screening at the Jerusalem Theatre Sunday evening which will be attended by the film's director and cast.

• If you have a moment on Monday, swing by artist Noa Nahari's exhibit "Side Walk," which has to do with sidewalk installations as they relate to socio-political meta-narratives, or something. No, really.

• If you like having your mind totally blown, man, stop by the Jerusalem Theatre on Tuesday for Glow, a blacklight theatre comedy that promises to help you find yourself. Don't forget to eat some mushroom...um, pizza before going.

• With a one-time run starting on Tuesday (and continuing through Thursday), an American-European-Israeli production of Rodgers and Hammerstein's classic The Sound of Music has arrived in Jerusalem - but will Israelis have much sympathy for the plight of a family whose greatest loss to the Nazis was a nice house and an audience?

• For those of you on the avant garde tip, don't miss Hazira's The Mill Owner and the Miller on Wednesday night, a modern dance take on a European Jewish fable.
  

And if that's not enough for you, there's lot more to see in the Events section.

Who said Jerusalem is a lame town? Please step forward and reveal yourself. The coming week, as with all weeks, is marked by a cornucopia of culturally enriching offerings for all tastes....

• This Saturday morning is the final performance (in Hebrew) of the Train Theater's puppet-driven adaptation of Bialik's Far Over the Sea.

• Saturday afternoon, the Bloomfield Science Museum's award-winning Dr. Molecule welcomes the city's children into his laboratory (in Hebrew).

• After Shabbat, Beit Avi Chai's Saturday night concert series continues with a performance from middle-aged alternative singer-songwriter Ari Gorali, who will surely perform his edgy radio hit "Its All Honey."

• Also on Saturday night, Daila's Vanguard: Music Without Borders concert series presents a jam session centered around Turkish saxophonist Albert Beger and bassist Michael Klinghoffer, who served as a key teacher in the training of Israeli jazz sensation Avishai Cohen.

• On Sunday, the hora lives on as the Gerard Bechar center offers Israeli folk dancing for beginners and experts alike.

• On Monday afternoon, two former Soviets, on cello and piano, perform the works of Chopin and Masana for free at Hebrew University's Mt. Scopus campus.

• Monday night brings the weekly English-language standup open mic at the Off The Wall Comedy Basement downtown.

• On Tuesday night, an American college (and post-college, if you ask Will Farrell) ritual called The Naked Mile comes to Hebrew U on Tuesday, including drink specials at the Reznik student nightlife hotspot.

• Also on Tuesday, Germany's acclaimed Carsten Daerr jazz ensemble comes to the Yellow Submarine, with free admission.

• On Wednesday (and every day through 19 July), photographer Arnon Toussia-Cohen's free exhibit of candid photos taken at a popular Tel Aviv train depot wrestles with issues of privacy in the contemporary age. Through these photos at the Artists' House, "the intimate is exposed and takes form," as Toussia-Cohen puts it.

• Next Thursday, July 3, acclaimed rebetiko ensemble Red Flower explores blues-like Greek folk music at the Yellow Submarine.

• Also on Thursday, the Old Train Station compound springs back into action with a reservations-only free performance by the Kolben Dance Company, accompanied by 18th-century Viennese waltzes played live by the Israel Camerata Orchestra.

• That same day, Beit Avi Chai stages the finale of its series of special screenings and lectures entitled Fact and Fiction: 60 Years of Israeli Film and Filmmakers, as Yulie Cohen Gerstel presents her 2007 documentary memoir about the tensions surrounding her brother becoming charedi, My Brother.

Jerusalemite threatens to present you with another batch of recommended activities on the eve of next weekend. And don't hold back: Live a little and enjoy our Events section, searchable by neighborhood, date range and more. Additional events are being added all the time.

Courtesy photo of Carsten Daerr and band, back at home in Germany.

Start things off in a relaxed manner on the 1st by visiting the Israel Draws Jerusalem exhibition at Mamilla and then heading to Safra Square to take in Rolling Flags, in which some people will ride some bikes across the square and then give Israeli flags to the mayor before seminal Israeli fusion rock act Ethnix goes on. But don't worry, the fun ramps up from there, and you'll be glad you saved your energy by the time night falls and the real party begins.

Dominating Monday night celebrations is Laila Lavan, this year's rebranded Student Day festival, which, taking a page from the beer-and-self-righteousness-soaked playbook of those debauched Tel Avivis, lasts all night and into the morning, filling up the time with a bevy of cultural activities, copious big-name concerts and discounted breakfast all over town. Considering that Jerusalem is usually a veritable crypt by 2 AM, an all-night festival is a strange and terrifying occurrence, and it remains to be seen what sorts of bizarreness will transpire when thousands of normally early-retiring Jerusalemites keep the party going well into Monday. They may well be so confused and disoriented that they participate for a change in the traditionally knit yarmulke-dominated Jerusalem Day march to the Western Wall.

And with all those boisterous young people with their hip-hop music and salsa dancing exhausted and hungover by the time Tuesday rolls around, our thoroughfares will be safe for families, labor unions and politicians, who will take to the streets Tuesday evening for a float-filled march to the Teddy Stadium, where Subliminal will regale the assembled masses with his unique brand of pro-establishment yet somehow brazenly rebellious rapping.

And while all this wackiness is going on, Jerusalem's theaters and concert halls are hosting a series of more thoughtful and edifying entertainment events as part of the ongoing Israel Festival.

Oh, and punctuating every day of celebrations will be - of course - fireworks. Lots and lots of fireworks. Because how will you know you're having fun unless the sky is filled with exploding colors?

Photo of Laila Lavan main stage co-headliner Efrat Gosh at a recent Jerusalem gig courtesy of smadars from flickr under a creative commons license; Student Day revelers throwing their hands in the air like they care for Jerusalem very much courtesy of Student Union spokesperson's office.

Despite 41's status as one of those unexciting prime numbers, Jerusalem is going beyond all-out to celebrate Jerusalem Day (Yom Yerushalayim) this year over the course of the first four days in June. If you thought last year's 40th anniversary parade approached a blue-and-white Mardi Gras at times, you ain't seen nothing yet - and by "nothing," Jerusalemite means "the 12-foot-tall, mildly-disappointed-looking wheeled head of David Ben-Gurion." This year, nationalist-religious pride, socialist-idealist nostalgia and monsters of pop are coming together for a special June 3 party.

Once a holiday celebrated primarily by members of the nationalist-religious camp, Jerusalem Day has become an increasingly secularized display of Israeli pride in recent years, entering the list of dates used as excuses to stage cultural events and throw parties - nothing wrong with that. Yet on another level, Jerusalem Day celebrations have for a long time had little to do with theology, with socialist throwback-themed floats snaking their way through the city's streets in an annual parade, this year scheduled to take place on the day after Jerusalem Day.

(For our complete coverage of the float parade and stadium gala, click here.)

There are plenty of historical and mystical reasons for Jews to party on Lag B'omer, which begins tonight.

The Omer itself, the seven-ish weeks between Passover and Shavuot, is traditionally a time of mourning and introspection, but the 33rd day of the Omer (33 is lamed-gimel to numerologists, two letters which can be enunciated together as "lag"), is a time for bonfires and revelry.

On Lag B'omer, the Jewish rebels who fought the Romans following the destruction of the Second Temple are said to have done some serious damage, and a plague that had been killing off the students of Rabbi Akiva is said to have disappeared, paving the way for Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai to begin studying under Rabbi Akiva's wing.

"Bar Yochai," as the ubiquitous Lag B'omer chant affectionately nicknames him, went on to canonize The Zohar, the central text of Kabbala, on this day, and he is said to have passed away on its anniversary as well.

Lag B'omer heralds a return to dogmatically sanctioned live music performances, weddings, haircuts and other festivities, but Lag B'omer is a harbinger of festivity for Jerusalemites who don't plan their lives around dogma as well.

Perhaps because of its superstitious, folky appeal, Lag B'omer is unlike many other religious observances in that its central lofty yet visceral ritual – namely, pyromania – has been adopted by the Israeli masses. Nearly as much smoke emanates from Sacher Park on Lag B'omer as the amounts that rise on Independence Day, arguably the most secular of holidays.

Just make sure to close your windows before you go to sleep so as to avoid waking up to a layer of soot on every surface in your home.

Photo of a child mesmerized by the Lag B'omer flames surrounding him courtesy of lev_cap from flickr under a creative commons license.

The smell of grilled meat permeated the air throughout the day as Jerusalemites celebrating Israel's 60th Independence Day (Yom Haatzmaut) descended upon Sacher Park to partake is one of Israel's national pastimes: roasting animal flesh for hours on end on rapidly fanned charcoal fires in crowded places.

Photos of Sacher Park by Maoz Golomb (second from top) and Ben Jacobson.