From the AJN:

Wiesel’s attacker gloats on Sydney-based website
Peter Kohn

THE man accused of attempting to kidnap Nobel laureate Elie Wiesel in a San Francisco hotel earlier this month has gloated about his efforts on an antisemitic website with Australian links.

Wiesel, 78, who has written extensively about how he survived Auschwitz and Buchenwald, told police he was accosted by an individual in the hotel lift on February 1 during a peace forum.

The stranger said he wanted to interview Wiesel, who suggested the lobby of the hotel, but the man demanded that Wiesel come with him to his hotel room and confess on camera that Night, his Holocaust memoir, was a work of fiction.

When the attacker tried to drag Wiesel from the lift on the sixth floor, Wiesel shouted and the assailant fled. Wiesel then went to the hotel lobby and reported the attack to police, who are investigating the incident.

Ha’aretz reported that the attacker then posted a description of his encounter with Wiesel on Ziopedia, a virulently antisemitic website registered to Sydney resident Andrew Winkler.

Claiming to be an individual named Eric Hunt, the alleged attacker stated on the Ziopedia website: “I had been trailing Wiesel for weeks and had hoped to bring Wiesel into my custody, with a cornered Wiesel finally forced to state the truth on videotape.”

The site has since been closed down.

ECAJ immediate past president Jeremy Jones told the AJN he is aware of Ziopedia’s Australian link, but believes the site is registered in the US, where its server is located.

“There’s nothing to indicate the site is more than a one-person operation … it’s pretty horrific stuff but unfortunately there are many, many sites and organisations that we’re aware of and this site isn’t high profile,” Jones said.

An outspoken advocate of Israel and Soviet and Ethiopian Jewry, Wiesel received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1986. Last year, he received an honorary knighthood for his services to Holocaust education.