It may not quite feel like it yet, but summer is winding down. And with festival season ending and the nonstop fall blowout of Jewish holidays still a month off, the late-summer doldrums have descended on the Holy City. But even during these languorous days, Jerusalem still offers plenty of ways to keep yourself entertained:

•  Tonight is your last chance to give a toast to Jerusalem at the Beer Festival. By Friday, all the beer vendors will be gone, and it'll be nothing but Goldstar and Tuborg 'til next summer.

• Even the Municipality is on the end-of-summer tip, and they've organized a free outdoor concert to commemorate it tonight in Independence Park. Sagol 59, HaYehudim and other big names will perform.

• Catch Peter Roth and Maor Cohen rockin' on the roof Friday afternoon during the Mishkenot Sha'ananim Music Festival.

• Even more outdoor music rumbles HaHistadrut Street all day Friday as crunchy pseudo-Rasta Mosh Ben Ari and others take it to the stage.

• Work out the tension Saturday night the best way science knows how: with public dancing in the park.

• Less physically taxing or potentially embarrassing Saturday night fun can be had at Arab/Jewish Middle Eastern folk outfit Sama'a's wine- and cheese-augmented performance at the Bible Lands Museum.

• English-language theater in Jerusalem is a rare beast indeed, so don't miss the debut of The Complete History of America: Abridged Sunday evening at the Merkaz.

• Introduce your kids to the magic of larger-than-life chimpanzee puppets on Sunday with Trained Animals, another winning Train Theater production.

• The Jerusalem Theatre is playing host to a month-long exhibit of [politically correct] artwork by immigrants to Israel, opening this Monday.

• Of all man's institutions, none is as ripe for parody as marriage. Nikolai Gogol knew it, and so does the Khan Theater, currently staging a Hebrew adaptation of his famous comedy Marriage. See it Monday night.

• Let the Israel Museum mess with your head a little Tuesday by checking out Secrets and Ties, an avant-garde exhibit slapped together from the museum's deep archives.

• Do Jews have soul? Find out at a Beit Avi Chai lecture on cantorial music on Wednesday.

As the high holidays become visible on the horizon (they're closer than it seems), summer festival season continues in earnest in the city, with Jerusalemites trying to cram in as much freewheeling good times as possible before the rigor of days of rest and days of fasting. Weather aside, it's a good time to be out and about, because, as it so happens, there will be beer...

•  X chromosomes go wild at Zimrat Isha, a one-night women-only mini-festival of religiously-inclined music tonight way out in the wilds of Har Nof.

• If you want to sing in classic old-school Israeli fashion - that is, in a large group and in homage to greatness of the Land of Israel - head down to Mamilla tonight for the first session of Singing in Mamilla, a Municipality series of public singalong concerts.

• Try something different for a wholesome Friday family activity by renting a family-sized bike at the Haas Promenade and seeing if you and your kids can manage to get the thing moving.

• Friday also sees Dorot HaRishonim Street downtown taken over by Israeli pop-rockers as part of the ongoing Front Stage series of outdoor summer concerts.

• Witness the reunion of '80s-era Israeli rock gods and longtime collaborators Miki Shaviv and Dan Toren at Beit Avi Chai after Shabbat makes a timely exit.

• If you haven't been to Chutzot HaYotzer yet, Saturday night is your last chance 'til next year.

• Have a chetzi of a fine British brew Sunday at Stardust as you watch Manchester City take on West Ham United live as the Premier League season heats up.

• Sunday marks the beginning of four days of fun and low-cost children's activities at Liberty Bell Park. Petting zoo, yo. All we're saying.

• Help the children learn about the magic of puppets with Quick Goose, a sort of meta-puppet production at the always reliable Train Theater.

• Are you funny? Are you willing to be carefully inoffensive about it? Take your bad self down to the Off the Wall Comedy Club for English-language open mic night on Monday.

• Tuesday afternoon kicks off three days of multidisciplinary artistic celebration at the Jerusalem Theatre's end of summer bash. Movies, theater, music, dance, and what appears to be an Israeli knockoff of Stomp, all for your pleasure.

• Dig lady supergroup HaBanot Nechama Tuesday evening at the usually staid, but lately cool Mishkenot Sha'ananim.

• And all that was only a lead-up: the real fun this week begins Wednesday night when the Jerusalem Beer Festival opens its gates. Barrels of good beer, live music, fascinating demonstrations and, uh...barrels of good beer. More on that later this week. 

The three weeks, the nine days and the ninth of Av are behind us - and with all the gloom out of the way, a Jerusalemite is free to turn to thoughts of luvvvvvvv. It's time for Tu B'Av, the Jewish holiday of love-or-something. The holiday's roots and proper celebrations are hazy, so Israelis have made it their equivalent of Valentine's Day - so this weekend is made for lovin'. Crank up the Marvin, pour the red wine and get ready for yet another week in Jerusalem.

•  The Italian Jewish community in Jerusalem is throwing a three-day celebration of Italian culture at the foot of Hillel Street starting this evening. Three words: pasta eating contest. Also art, opera, music, plays, food vendors and more.

• Ladies can start getting into the Tu B'Av spirit by attending a females-only benefit concert for the displaced young brides of the Gaza evacuation tonight at the Pargod Theater.

• Bask in the light of the full desert moon on an all-night Tu B'Av desert safari organized by the tour-happy people at Beit Shmuel this Friday.

• In case you've soured on love, you can wallow in misery Friday at the Museum on the Seam, which recently opened a new multimedia exhibit on the Tu B'Av-appropriate themes of fear and trauma.

• Lovers should take note of the Full Moon Festival at Beit Shmuel, a Tu B'Av revue of classic love songs on the theater's outdoor patio under the moonlight.

• More love songs ring out in the Judean Hills outside Jerusalem in Nataf on Saturday night, when singer Yael Badihi delivers a set of the Bible's hottest love songs. Hell yes, the Bible has hot love songs.

• With Tu B'Av in the past, take in a more cynical take on love Sunday with Hanoch Levin's classic play Move My Heart at the Jerusalem Theatre.

• Sixteen-year-old viola prodigy Dor Sperber rocks the Mormons (and guests) in a free Sunday concert at Brigham Young University.

• The Train Theater is ready to entertain your kids Monday with Operation Soda, the story of a boy and a donkey who save Tel Aviv's secret treasure from a band of robbers.

• Gain insight into the history of Israel's pop music with a combination retrospective lecture/concert at Beit Avi Chai on the slightly tardy topic of romance in Israeli song.

• Get your fifths flatted Tuesday at the German Colony Jazz Festival, a weekly celebration of jazz music featuring arts and crafts merchants, food stalls and, of course, much jazz hot.

• Get to know the city's airborne residents Tuesday with a low-priced bird-watching tour organized by the Jerusalem Bird Observatory.
  

• Teach your offspring how to make pita and do the laundry circa 1900 with a visit to the Old Yishuv Court Museum, running a daily summer program of early 20th-century children's activities.

• Watching a fascinating film Wednesday on the secret religious practices of Iberian crypto-Jews at the Bible Lands Museum.

And as always, there's plenty more to see and do in the Jerusalemite Events section. Have a great weekend.

Image courtesy of david_shankbone from Flickr under a Creative Commons license.