‘Facebuker Rebbe’ Dovid Winiarz Dies in Car Crash on Icy Sunday Morning
Graphic by Angelie Zaslavsky
Rabbi Dovid Winiarz, the self-proclaimed “Facebuker Rebbe” for his outreach efforts over Facebook, was killed in a car accident on an icy road in Maryland.
Winiarz, 49, of New York, was a passenger on Sunday morning in a vehicle that lost control in the icy conditions and struck another car. He was on his way to a Jewish outreach convention in Baltimore.
More than 400 people attended his funeral on Monday morning on Staten Island. Winiarz was the father of 10 children. The driver and the front seat passenger, as well as the two passengers in the other car, survived the crash, according to reports.
Winiarz was president of Survival Through Education Inc., which calls on Jews to discover their faith and reach out to unaffiliated Jews, and served as the rabbi at the Multi-Faith Center at the College of Staten Island, Willowbrook.
He often posted short Torah studies teachings on his Facebook page, which has nearly 13,000 followers.
Among his last Facebook posts read: “I will be travelling Motzai Shabbos/Saturday nite with the encouragement of my wife and children to a convention in Baltimore … If I am delayed in replying to messages … please bear with me.”
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