I do not think that the versions of definition on this thread do really get to grips with meaning and usage.

Is it antisemitic to assert that Jews tend to have certain characteristics? cf MG's statement "I am certainly glad I am not like most men". It calls to mind the biblical quote "I thank thee Lord that I am not as other men are". I wonder if that was intentional. I knew a TV interviewer who got into very hot water by asking Robert Maxwell "How come you are so good with money? Is it because you are Jewish?" Oddly Maxwell did not take umbrage, but others did on his behalf. Odder still we later found out that Maxwell's companies were all smoke and mirrors so he was not so good with money after all.

This week one of the BBC channels has been running programs on Jews in the Entertainment Industry. I have not seen the programs. Is the fact of their intitulation antisemitic in that it invites prejudice (which I think is perhaps a more accurate term than "bigotry" in context). I am concerned to express any view, in that I have been a lawyer for quite a number of years, and indeed a lawyer in the film and TV (and occasionally music) business too.

Is it only antisemitic if you express concern at the prevalance (if it be the case) of Jews in certain fields, or is it antisemitic even to establish the facts?

If it is antisemitic for a non-Jew to evaluate whether another is Jewish or not, what is the word for the Jew who plays "Jew or non-Jew".

Surely an opposition to what Israel does is not antisemitic unless on the ground that Isreal is Jewish or because the perception of what Israel does is tainted by the fact that it is Israel.

Surely an opposition to Judaism is not antisemitic unless on the ground that it is Jewish or because the perception of what Judaism does is tainted by the fact that it is Judaism.

In everyday life surely, antisemitism lies in the attribution without evidence of characteristics to a person because he is Jewish. If there is evidence that a person actually has characteristics it is not prejudiced to say so. And indeed since we know that inherited abilities of offspring are (in many cases, ignoring complicated things like recessive genes) normally distributed about the mean of the parents' scores, it must be consistent to expect people to have some of the characteristics of their parents (if you know their parents), and so on - but expectation is not wholly the same as prejudgment. One may expect someone (on the basis of evidence) to be such-and-so, but still take that person as you actually find them.

It is expectation without evidence that is prejudice.

A judgment or view made on the basis of fact cannot therefore be racist or antisemitic. Many people jumped on me when I suggested that Lloyd's assertion that shanties were only sung in harmony on negro ships might have been tending towards racist. The majority view was that if it was so, then it was right to say so. The same measure must be applied or there is discrimination one way or the other.