A four-year-old Jewish New Zealand boy was attacked last month by a group of men while he walked home from his pre-school.

According to a report in The New Zealand Herald, the boy was left traumatized after being attacked by a man who hit him hard on the top of his head in front of his mother, brother and a friend. The incident took place in what the paper described as an upscale Auckland suburb of Mt. Eden. The paper cited New Zealand Jewish Council president Stephen Goodman as saying the attacker was a man in his 20s of Middle Eastern appearance, and the man reportedly laughed as he left the scene with four others.

Head of the New Zealand Jewish group said the attack appeared to be a hate crime racially motivated as both the boy and his friend were wearing kippas and are ultra-Orthodox Jews. The boy’s mother notified police who are now working to make an arrest. Goodman said he believed this anti-Semitic hate crime on a defenseless boy would come as a shock to many New Zealanders.