ספינקע עקסידענט ה"י!!!

By Heather Yakin and Simon Shifrin
Times Herald-Record
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[email protected]

Rock Hill - The wife of a prominent rabbi died Monday night after the minivan she and her husband were riding in crashed on Glen Wild Road.

Sara Horowitz, 57, and Rabbi Berisch Horowitz, 58, were heading back to Camp Beth Yitzchok D'Spinka off Dairyland Road in Ulster County, just past Woodridge.

The 2004 Honda minivan was being driven by 21-year-old Moshe Minz of Brooklyn. The men were in the front seat. Mrs. Horowitz and Sophia Fashnig, 54, of Queens, were in the back.

About 11 p.m., police said, the van drifted off the right shoulder of Glen Wild Road near the Rock Hill firehouse. Minz tried to steer back onto the road, but over-corrected and lost control. The van went off the shoulder and flipped. Mrs. Horowitz wasn't wearing a seat belt and was thrown out of the van.

Emergency workers tried to resuscitate her, but she was pronounced dead at Catskill Regional Medical Center in Harris.

Berisch Horowitz, who has cancer and a heart condition, had gone for chemotherapy in New York City earlier Monday and was returning to the camp, said Rabbi Bernard Freilich, the state police liaison to the Hasidic community.

Berisch Horowitz was flown to Westchester Medical Center in Valhalla after telling rescuers he had chest pains. He was listed yesterday in fair condition.

Minz and Fashnig were treated at Catskill for minor injuries.

Sullivan County sheriff's deputies are investigating, and state police are reconstructing the crash.

Rabbi Horowitz is one of several Spinka rabbis. The Spinka are close to the Satmar Hasidic group, both spiritually and geographically.

Sara Horowitz helped her husband run their school in Williamsburg, the Yeshiva Beth Yitzchok D'Spinka.

"Sara used to help a lot of people. Everyone's in special shock because she was beloved," said Rabbi Abraham Roth, the principal at Camp Sva Rotzon Spinka outside South Fallsburg. "Everyone is heartbroken."

Sara Horowitz took personal care of her husband during his illness. She helped organize charity parties and buy food and clothing for needy families during the holidays.

Freilich said both of the Horowitzes came from well-regarded Hasidic families. The Horowitz family has a centuries-old lineage of rabbis, and Berisch Horowitz is the son of the late Rabbi Samuel Horowitz, who is internationally known. Mrs. Horowitz's family, the Meisels, are also prominent, Freilich said.

The couple have seven children. All are grown and married except for the youngest son, who is engaged.

That son was en route home from Israel for Sara Horowitz's 3 p.m. funeral yesterday at the family's synagogue in the Williamsburg section of Brooklyn. She was to be buried in New Jersey.

Reporter Chris McKenna contributed to this report.