It has emerged that the young man attacked yesterday in Berlin for wearing a kippah has been revealed not to be Jewish, but rather an Israeli Arab wearing the Jewish head-covering to see if reports about antisemitism were accurate.

Speaking to German national broadcaster Deutsche Welle, the man, who has been named only as Adam A, said he had been prompted to wear the kippah after being told by a Jewish friend that it was dangerous to publicly wear the item in Germany.

“The friend of mine, when he gave us the kippah as a gift, he said it’s unsafe to go out with a kippah on the streets of Germany, and we had a discussion about it,” he said.

“I was saying that it is really safe. I wanted to prove it, but it ended like that.”

Adam A., the victim of yesterday’s anti-Semitic attack in Berlin wanted to find out how risky it is to wear a kippa in Germany. He explains what happened. pic.twitter.com/yJ4fjHL9pK

— DW | Politics (@dw_politics) April 18, 2018

Adam filmed the incident on Tuesday with his mobile phone. It showed a man a man hitting him with a belt, while repeatedly calling him “Jew” in Arabic. The video subsequently went viral on social media.

“I wanted to have evidence for the police, and for the German people and the world to see how terrible it is these days as Jews to go through Berlin’s streets,” Adam told Deutsche Welle.

He confirmed that he was “not Jewish, but I am an Israeli, from an Arab family.”

The attack took place in Prenzlauer Berg, a Jewish area of Berlin popular among Israelis living in Berlin. It is also home to an Orthodox Jewish community centred around the Lauder Yeshivas Beis Zion and the synagogue Kahal Adass Jisroel Berlin.

Mike Samuel Delberg, a member of Berlin’s Jewish community council, urged the police and investigators to find the perpetrator and “go after him with the full force of law.”