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.

And as always, there's plenty more to do, and you'll find it all in the Jerusalemite Events Section. Click here for a full listing of the week's events.

Image of Gustavo Sagorsky's photography courtesy of the Jerusalem Artists House.

With projects rarely finishing even remotely according to schedule, construction in Jerusalem is so pervasive and continuous that it's hard to believe that work on the Bridge of Strings has finally ended (or has it?). The past six years of bridge building (and its limitations on our city's main circuits) has certainly been infuriating at times, but the result is unquestionably fascinating. Let's look back at the evolution of the bridge from the initial sketch by Santiago Calatrava to the completed architectural marvel.

We'll start off with some interesting (and not so interesting) facts about the bridge provided by the Jerusalem municipality and Moriah, the engineering company that constructed the bridge.

Location: The bridge is located near the main entrance to the city, near the Central Bus Station.

Reason: The bridge was built to carry Jerusalem's future light rail lines across a dense urban area, resolving traffic and pedestrian issues, and to create a new landmark for the entrance to the city.

Construction began: 2002

Inaugurated: June 25, 2008

Type of structure: Steel arch bridge, cable span bridge with pylon

(The specs and photos continue here.)

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.

So many farces; so much optimism. That's the Jerusalem way. Last night marked the closing event in the celebrations over the "closing of 40 years" since Jerusalem was reunited. Even though the event took place over three weeks after Jerusalem Day. Even though Jerusalem has been reunited for 41 years. Even though the purpose was to dedicate a bridge whose construction is not complete and won't be used for its primary purpose (carrying the light rail system's electric trolleys) for about two years. Even though the whole project has been marred by several categories of criticism.

But Santiago Calatrava's Bridge of Strings was dedicated in a gala free celebration last night, an event that added half a million dollars to the project's already bloated $73 million budget (over twice the original planned expenditure), and VIPs and tens of thousands of revelers from across the land came to our city entrance square to check it out.

Aside from performances from contemporary popper David D'or, Broadway hazzanut crooner Dudu Fisher and local ensemble The Jerusalem Flower Choir, the famed Ra'anana Symphonette played a rousing set that accompanied aerial acrobatics, video projections on eight screens, splashes of multi-colored lights, pyrotechnics and hundreds of dancers (the women among them reportedly having been encouraged politely to wear long skirts and head coverings).

The production was named Hallelujah, an appropriate moniker for a show centered around a structure that has been likened to David's harp by its visionary.

Around here, "facts on the ground" make dreams come true, and perhaps the sight of the tallest spire in the Middle East will help to take our city's sense of aesthetics and ambition to new heights.

Jerusalemite's coverage of the Bridge of Strings continues next week.

Aerial photo of the bridge and its environs (top) by Sasson Tiram, courtesy of the Jerusalem Municipality; photos of last night's multimedia extravaganza courtesy of bdnegin under a creative commons license.

Guy Yitzhaki, photographer and video artist, is a founding member of the Jerusalem art collective Hagigit, a group dedicated to creating and encouraging interdisciplinary art activities in Jerusalem. Through exhibitions, street performances and cooperation with artists in different mediums and with the local community, Hagigit strives to bring art to a wider public audience. Hagigit first caught Jerusalemite's eye this past Independence Day when they constructed a temporary outdoor studio in Gan Sacher (Sacher Park) for the afternoon and photographed complying and curious passersby. The resulting photographs capture everyday people enjoying the opportunity to participate in - and become themselves - art. Yitzhaki was born in Jerusalem, received a B.Sc. in Mathematics and Computer Science from the Hebrew University and after a few years of slaving away in the high-tech industry he decided there was more to life; so he pursued his interest in photography and enrolled in Jerusalem's Naggar School of Photography, Media & New Music (the "Musrara School"). While studying there, Yitzhaki met other like-minded Jerusalemites and together, they formed the Hagigit. Yitzhaki still works part-time in high-tech, but his passion remains photography.

Tell us about the Hagigit collective and how you came together? The Hagigit collective is made up of eight recent graduates of the Musrara School of Photography. After studying together for three years, a group of us felt that we enjoyed working together, that working as a group allowed us to achieve more collectively than individually and that way we could also utilize our different strengths better. Each of us remains active independently as well, in his or her own fields of art.

How do you feel your collective relates to Jerusalem or reflects something specific about Jerusalem? A project like this in Tel Aviv would be considered typical, no? One of our main goals as a group is to encourage artistic activities in Jerusalem. In comparison with Tel Aviv, Jerusalem has a much more varied population, large parts of which are not exposed to art as part of their everyday life. This makes it much more of a challenge but also more rewarding for us to hold such an event in Jerusalem.

Do you feel the Jerusalem arts scene is experiencing a recent revival? Are there other collectives or Jerusalem-based artists you're working with? For some years now, the Jerusalem art scene has been struggling but surviving without support from the municipality or other formal establishments in a somewhat underground mode. However, the activity that is going on is by far more interesting and non-commercial than what is going on in Tel Aviv. The best example for this is the Hearat Shulayim (Note in the Margin) events organized by the Sala-Manca group whose events influenced the entire Israeli art scene.

(Click here for the full interview)

Just in time to relieve the crashed-out university students and university student wannabes who had celebrated all night at the enormous Laila Lavan event, Flag-carrying Orthodox Jews from across the land kept the party going into the late afternoon yesterday. To the tune of live bands on a Zion Square stage doing their best to connect scriptural references to Jerusalem to the military victory the city witnessed in 1967, thousands made their way from various starting points, through the Ben Yehuda pedestrian mall and to the Western Wall (Kotel).

Jerusalem Day (Yom Yerushalayim) might be officially over, but today the celebrations continue, with Shiri Maimon, Subliminal, President Shimon Peres and many others capping off a parade through our major streets with some major pop action over at Teddy Stadium.

Photo of Jerusalem's own Hadag Nachash rocking Laila Lavan last night (top) courtesy of gellerj from flickr under a creative commons license; marching youth spilling through the Ben Yehuda pedestrian mall yesterday afternoon (middle) by Ben Jacobson for Jerusalemite; street musicians and families join in on the flag-oriented fun (above left) by Ben Jacobson for Jerusalemite; Shiri Maimon resting up prior to her Teddy Stadium gig tonight (above right) courtesy Helicon Records.

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.

There has been a flurry of activity over the past few days on the streets of Jerusalem as the city and its people prepare for tomorrow night's festivities and celebration. Jerusalem sent out a photographer out on a mission to photograph the city's preparation. Ok, we didn't - he just took the photos on the way to the office.

When the municipality announced the laser show, Jerusalemite was a bit suspect, expecting something not too professional and absolutely cheesy. As demonstrated by the photo directly below, the laser show might be worth checking out after all.

Photos by Ben Jacobson for Jerusalemite.

Construction on the Bridge of Strings at the entrance to Jerusalem is almost complete and will be dedicated on June 26 in honor of Israel's 60th anniversary. Designed by famed Spanish architect Santiago Calatrava, the construction of the bridge has not been without controversy. Outrageous traffic jams, increasing costs and even cracks (yes, cracks) in the bridge and other problems have made for a PR nightmare for the municipality. Many feel that the bridge is simply out of its element and question whether it even fits visually in the city. Others think that Jerusalem, a city not exactly known for anything progressive nor enough spending on welfare or cultural initiatives, is deserving of such a unique landmark. Design-wise, the goal of the bridge was to add a defining visual element to the "skyline" of the entrance of Jerusalem, which, up until now included dilapidated buildings and that's about it.

Besides being an architectural wonder, the bridge's purpose is to carry the Jerusalem light rail, which is currently more than a year behind even the most updated schedules.

Without thinking about all the problems that have plagued the construction, the Bridge of Strings (some say Chords) is a marvel, and it is impossible to stand under it and not be in awe.

Click here for more.