Minister of Education Naftali Bennet has instructed the ministry's professional bodies to add, for the first time, a binding clause in the Israel Prize Regulations, according to which every committee that chooses an Israel Prize winner will have at least one woman present, according to Yediot Ahronot. At the beginning of the week, there were quite a few voices criticizing the lack of female representation in the Israel Prize, both in the committees and in the lists of winners.S
Since 2000, 171 committees have been convened to select Israel Prize laureates, of whom 35 were without women. During that time, there have been a total of 611 judges in the Israel Prize committees - 411 of whom were men. The period saw 266 winners, of whom 216 were men.