Rabbi Mordecai Waxman, who delivered a speech challenging Pope John Paul II to confront Jewish issues, died Saturday in Great Neck, N.Y., at age 85. Speaking in 1987 in Miami with the pope sitting in the audience, Waxman called for the Vatican to pay more attention to Christian anti-Semitism, relations with Israel and Jewish pain over the pope’s meeting with controversial Austrian President Kurt Waldheim, who served in wartime units implicated in the Holocaust.
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The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
