Senator Joseph McCarthy of Wisconsin is a name that is infamous in American history.

The senator hurled scurrilous innuendos and attacked the character of those he opposed. He routinely labelled them as “Communists” in an attempt to squelch all political views at odds with his own.

In the spring of 1954, when his power was at its zenith, McCarthy charged that the Army was lax in its security. He demanded that its leaders appear before him in Senate hearing. The army hired the prominent Boston attorney Joseph Welch to defend it.

On June 9, 1954, when McCarthy suddenly claimed that one of Welch’s attorneys had ties to a Communist organization, Welch responded with unforgettable lines that remain eternally etched in the conscience of our nation.

“Until this moment, Senator, I think I never really gauged your cruelty or your recklessness.” When McCarthy tried to continue, Welch, with the entire nation looking on at the televised hearings, stated, “Let us not assassinate this lad further, Senator. You have done enough. Have you no sense of decency?”

McCarthy never recovered from his public shaming. His power dissipated and his name became and remains a euphemism for unfair, hateful, and unjustified attacks.

Unfortunately, McCarthy’s tactics are apparently still alive and well in the Jewish community today. Ronn Torossian and Pam Geller have attacked Karen Adler, Alisa Doctoroff, Edith Everett, and Carol Zabar — among the most prominent leaders of our community — as supporters of the BDS campaign against Israel who seek to undermine the Jewish state. Torossian did so in a New York Post opinion piece and Geller’s group has sponsored bus ads repeating the charge.

Read this entire article, by Deborah Lipstadt and David Ellenson, on The Forward »