Thousands of mourners gathered outside the Bnei Torah synagogue in the Jerusalem neighborhood of Har Nof to mourn the loss of Rabbi Aryeh Kopinsky, 43, Rabbi Avraham Shmuel Goldberg, 58, and Rabbi Calman Levine - all from Har Nof – who were laid to rest Tuesday afternoon.
The three rabbis– two US-Israeli citizens and a British-Israeli national - were murdered by two Palestinian gunmen who opened fire in a brutal terror attack on the synagogue early Tuesday morning.
Kopinsky and Levine held dual US-Israeli citizenship after making aliya from the United States and Goldberg was a British-Israeli national who immigrated to Israel from Britain.
“How many widows and orphans joined all of Israel this morning, four widows and 24 orphans on one street,” Rabbi Yitzhak Rubin, head of the congregation said at the funeral.
"You cannot take an Ishmaeli and place him in school or university or tell him to be educated because he and his ancestors and his ancestor's ancestors were savages," he said in reference to the attackers. "We will not deal with revenge or responses because we have what Moshe Rabbeinu promised to us," he said.
Kopinsky's death marked a further tragedy for his family as his 13 year-old daughter died two years ago under sudden circumstances. "You were a man of kindness with modesty and humility" his brother Chaim Kopinsky eulogized.
Kopinsky leaves behind a wife and five children.
Yerachmiel Levine, eulogized his father and said he, “used to study [Torah] every day until late at night when he would fall asleep at his chair.”
Levine leaves behind a wife, nine children and five grandchildren.
Pinhas Markowitz, said of his brother-in-law Goldberg, "You were full of love for G-d and studying Torah and love of the individual and of health."
Goldberg who made aliyah over 20 years ago from Liverpool leaves behind a wife and six children.
Following the remarks and eulogies the victim’s children gathered together to recite the mourner's Kaddish. The funeral procession then made its way to Har HaMenuchot in the neighborhood of Givat Shaul where the three Rabbis were laid to rest.
