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.
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