A public row between two main Cambridge lecturers has intensified amid accusations of antisemitism.
Historian David Abulafia claimed that Priyamvada Gopal expressed an anti-Jewish slur by showing to counsel that he had colluded with the scholar newspaper Varsity, in an interview attacking her.
The row started when Prof Gopal, a professor of Postcolonial Literature, stated it was offensive for Prof Abulafia to explain the historical past professor and TV documentary presenter David Olusoga as ‘eloquent’.
Historian David Abulafia (pictured) advised The Occasions: ‘I am not attempting to get Gopal sacked however she’s clearly utterly uncontrolled’
She tweeted: ‘Calling writers/students/intellectuals of color “eloquent” or “articulate” – eg Abulafia on Olusoga – can very often be a bit sleight of hand dismissal.’
Prof Abulafia dismissed the criticism and advised that it was ‘insulting or probably libellous’ in an interview with the scholar newspaper.
In response, Prof Gopal wrote a collection of posts on social media that appeared to counsel collusion between scholar journalists and Prof Abulafia, and claimed the paper had ‘severe conflicts of curiosity’.
The Cambridge College Jewish Society stated Prof Gopal made ‘baseless and damaging accusations in opposition to two Jewish scholar journalists…[and echoed] historic tropes about media management’.
Prof Abulafia advised The Occasions: ‘I am not attempting to get Gopal sacked however she’s clearly utterly uncontrolled.
‘In a collection of tweets she claimed that the scholar newspaper journalist I spoke to was a part of a conspiracy.
Priyamvada Gopal (pictured) tweeted: ‘Calling writers/students/intellectuals of color “eloquent” or “articulate” – eg Abulafia on Olusoga – can very often be a bit sleight of hand dismissal’
‘Each he and I are Jewish and we’re all accustomed to the antisemitic Jewish conspiracy trope – she even referenced tips designed to cease hate speech across the Holocaust.
‘She [Gopal] is a woke warrior and this dissection of language simply creates extra division – now we’re calling individuals who say one thing constructive offensive.
‘It is like Alice in Wonderland and we have gone by the trying glass the place all the pieces is the other way up.
‘I’ve considered authorized motion – I’ve numerous attorneys in my household and pals so we’ll see.’
Prof Gopal, a fellow of Churchill School, Cambridge, isn’t any stranger to controversy.
In June 2020, she tweeted ‘White lives do not matter. As white lives’ and later added ‘Abolish whiteness’, in response to a banner flown over a soccer stadium that learn ‘White lives matter Burnley.’ She was briefly suspended from Twitter.