Briton, three Americans killed in Jerusalem while praying

A massive crowd of mourners gathered in Jerusalem Tuesday just hours after four Israeli worshipers -- all of whom held dual U.S. or UK citizenship -- were killed by Palestinians wielding axes and a gun, according to Israeli police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld told CNN.

At 7 a.m. local time, Aryeh Kopinsky, 43; Calman Levine, 50; Moshe Twersky, 59; and Avraham Shmuel Goldberg, 58, were praying in a synagogue in the Har Nof neighborhood, an ultra-Orthodox community where many people from Western nations liv

Kopinsky, Levine and Twerksy had dual U.S.-Israeli citizenship, the Jerusalem Post reports. Continue..

Goldberg is a British-Israeli national, authorities said. He's from Liverpool, according to the Liverpool Echo and used to live in London's Golders Green neighborhood, which is known for its large Jewish population.

Levine leaves behind five children and nine grandchildren, the Post reports.

Twersky is originally from Boston, according to the newspaper, and his father was Isadore Twersky. The elder Twersky was an internationally renown rabbi and philosopher as well as a professor of Hebrew literature at Harvard University. When he died in 1997,the Harvard Crimson called him a pioneer of Jewish thought.

Moshe Twersky's grandfather was Joseph B. Soloveitchik, who is considered a founding father of modern Orthodox philosophy.

A New York Times obituary on Isadore Twersky says that Moshe Twersky had two brothers who were rabbis.

Rosenfeld said that police responded shortly after the attack began and shot and killed the attackers -- two cousins from East Jerusalem.

Tuesday's attack is the deadliest attack in Jerusalem since a man with an automatic weapon killed eight seminary students in March 2008.

But the city has been on edge lately after a series of stabbings and vehicles attacks.

A man on a microphone tried to soothe the crowd of crying mourners.

"When four great men, wonderful men, wise in Torah study are slaughtered while praying in public, there is no public grieving greater than that," the man said in Hebrew.

A camera captured young women wrapping their arms around each other and swaying. One buried her head in another's shoulder and wept.

Funerals for the four victims were to be held Tuesday afternoon.

Mark Regev, spokesman for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, vowed that Israeli police presence will be increased. "We've got to make sure there are no copycat attacks," he said on CNN's "New Day."

Netanyahu summoned top aides to a "security consultation" later Tuesday in Jerusalem, his office announced.