Culture Minister Miri Regev joined Interior Minister Aryeh Deri in his criticism of the fact that not one of the ten Israel Prize winners is from the Sephardi community.
"The Israel Prize is intended to strengthen the spirit of the Jewish People," she wrote on Twitter. "Instead, it's doing exactly the opposite. It is weakening the Jewish spirit, and damaging the essence of Israeli society and the various cultures that are part of it. This is the reason why the Israel Prize doesn't really interest most people. Maybe because they feel excluded. The time has come to resolve this," she concluded.