The Biton Committee — formally known as The Committee for the Empowerment of the Culture of Sephardic and Eastern Jewry in the Educational System — whose recommendations were published July 7, has provoked an expected and populistic debate full of ignorance and harsh criticism.

It’s a shame, because the Biton Committee is one of the most important things that has happened here in recent years in all that relates to the attempt to create a common national and cultural narrative that does not prefer one group or erase the other.

The Biton Committee is the complete opposite of the shallow Mizrahi (Middle East) discourse led by Minister of Culture and Sport Miri Regev — who is of Mizrahi origin — in the attempt to speak to the heart of her electorate. The committee aimed to fix things in a constructive way, not a loud and factional one.

Minister of Education and Chairman of HaBayit HaYehudi Naftali Bennett established the committee, which began its work in February. Bennett is a politician who often ventures into the arena of populism, and it could be that this move was also motivated by a cynical worldview that seeks to wink to the Mizrahi electorate — as was his failed attempt to recruit the former soccer star Eli Ohana in the 2015 election. But we should put political intentions aside in this case and praise Bennett for initiating the composition of an important document that could make real change. Bennett will have to prove that he is serious by ensuring the implementation of the committee's main conclusions — in other words, fight for the allocation of the funds necessary to implement it: about half a billion Israeli shekels ($130 million).