Given the way things are in Israel, it was unlikely that anyone would have taken for granted the decision on March 29 to award the Israel Prize for Literature and Poetry to Erez Biton, the first Mizrahi (Sephardic, of Middle Eastern or North African descent) to win the prestigious accolade. After all, the ethnic card doesn’t wait for someone to pull it out of the deck; it roams freely and pounces.

Israelis, both of Ashkenazi (of European descent) and Mizrahi descent, do not need a special reason for a confrontation over ethnicity. They simply find a way to a link in every event, whether remotely related or not, to generate tension and each use it for its own purpose. We encountered such farcical manipulation, for instance, in using the death of songwriter and poet Arik Einstein as an excuse to attack the Ashkenazi cultural hegemony, or the claims against the Mizrahim in the wake of the Likud Party’s recent election victory.

The prestigious Israel Prize is awarded at an official ceremony on Independence Day each year by the prime minister, and is generally regarded as the state's highest honor. The prize is awarded in several areas, such as natural science, humanities, social science, Judaism, exact sciences, culture, arts, communication, sports and lifetime achievement. A public committee picks the recipients.

In the case before us, the ethnic tensions are clearly relevant: Critics argue that Israel Prize recipients are traditionally picked by mostly male, Ashkenazi judges, along unequal, ethnic lines that discriminate against Mizrahim, women and Arabs. Proof can be found in the small number of Mizrahi laureates. “Since 2000, only 18% of the winners were women and 92% of all winners were Ashkenazi,” social activist Revital Madar wrote in Haaretz. “Who really needs the Israel Prize?” asked another pundit who examined the history of discrimination in the annual awards.