Katy Perry, bar mitzvah DJ?

Talia Lavin

Katy Perry has released a new promo video for her new single, “Birthday,” that features the singer as a mistress of disguise.

Among other birthday-related professionals — an aged dancer named Goldie (for her “golden nuggets”) and a Craigslist birthday clown — Perry dresses as “Yosef Shulem,” a bar mitzvah DJ who has a penchant for telling offensive rabbi jokes.

Pop culture mavens who caught wind of the ire Perry drew after dressing as a geisha at the American Music Awards might have expected the pop star to learn a little about cultural (in)appropriation. But there she is, wearing a kippah, a Jew-fro, and some hastily applied facial hair.

Maybe Perry is just riding the wave of other famous bar mitzvah videos.  But the kippah-slapping, gravel-voiced Yosef Shulem character is enough to give us pause — or maybe refrain from downloading her new single.

“Did you hear about the rabbi who gave out free circumcisions?” Perry-as-Shulem asks. “He worked for tips!”

Watch the video here:

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Talia Lavin is JTA’s editorial assistant. She was a Fulbright scholar in Ukraine. Her poetry and nonfiction writing have been published in Tuesday Magazine, the Gamut, The Birch, Tablet, The Starry Night Review and elsewhere. Follow her on Twitter at @chick_in_kiev.