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JERUSALEM — Anna Nourezitz is inconsolable.

Her long hair caught in an almost girlish ponytail, the matronly mother of three grown children cannot control the quiet sobs. Issai, her husband, sits next to her on the small couch, staring into the black hole of his grief. Their two remaining children, Misha and Marina, hover close by, each with dark circles under their eyes.

The small living room in Or Akiva is filled with mourning friends and relatives, all still in shock over the loss of Vadim, one of the army reservist victims of last Thursday's lynch mob killings in Ramallah.

Shiva calls are always difficult, but what do you say to a family who sits numbed by the unspeakable violence committed against their 33-year-old son and played on television sceens all over the world?

The pain in the room is palpable. It hangs heavily in the warm, still, mid-October humidity of the small town near Ceasarea.

The Nourezitz apartment is reminiscent of former Soviet Union refuseniks' homes in the 1970s and 1980s. The furniture and chachkas have that Russian flavor, but Or Akiva is a far cry from Irkutsk, the Siberian capital from where the family fled from 10 years ago.

Vadim was married just one week before his death. He and Irina, a soft-featured, attractive woman, dated four years before standing under the chuppah together two weeks ago. The premature widow pulls out pictures of their wedding — pictures that had graced the pages of all the Israeli dailies last Friday.

A shy-looking, handsome Vadim wearing a satin kippah looks out at the camera with an open smile. Irina, in traditional white, looks radiant, far from the state in which we find her just 10 days later.

Rabbi Avi Weiss has traveled from New York to bring comfort to as many of the families of the Israelis killed in last week's terror as possible. He first visits Or Akiva and Petach Tikva, where Nourezitz and Yosef Avrahami, the other Ramallah murder victim, lived. Driving to these towns are still relatively safe.

Weiss, as rabbi of one of the most vibrant open Orthodox congregations in the United States, has decades of experience comforting the bereaved. But one can see that even for a person accustomed to confronting mourning, the deep, profound grief of the Nourezitz family is difficult for him to face.

Everyone in that living room grapples with the task of erasing the horrible images of Vadim's death from their minds.

Weiss' words are translated into Russian for Issai and Anna by Alex Rovni, a family friend and local council member who is helping to coordinate the stream of condolence visits by Knesset members, rabbis and government ministers. The parents nod slowly in appreciation of the rabbi's expressions of caring and sympathy.

Finally, as he rises to leave, Issai raises his eyes to tell us that he still has a future and Vadim will have a legacy because Irina is pregnant.

But on and on goes the pain of the Nourezitz family.