Michal Peer’s job is not one most people could ever do. As a forensic anthropologist, she examines human remains to help try and identify to whom they belonged. In what could only be described as a macabre twist of fate, her first day of employment at Israel’s Abu Kabir Forensic Institute was Oct. 8, 2023.
In January, 2024, Peer, who grew up in the Denver area, spoke with the IJN about her work since Oct. 7, 2023. Peer was recently in Colorado for Passover — a holiday that has a special meaning for her family: Her father, Jeff, experienced his own personal exodus from Egypt. In 1970, a pilot in the Israel Defense Forces, he was taken prisoner by the Egyptian military and remained a POW until 1973.
During her time in Colorado, she made time to visit the Intermountain Jewish News and share more about her gruesome yet critical work at the institute and her journey as a forensic anthropologist.
IJN: In the current environment, what does it feel like to leave Israel and return to Israel?
Peer: I can’t really disconnect completely, partially because I’m still in all the WhatsApp groups, so I see all the stuff that’s going on. I already know there’s work waiting for me when I get back.
The weirdest one was this past October.
I did a really prestigious visiting scientist program at the New York Medical Examiner’s Office for forensic anthropologists, so I was in New York for the entirety of the month of October, 2024. Which means I was not in Israel for the first anniversary of Oct. 7. It was really, really strange.
I attended a memorial service with the aunt and uncle I was staying with in Queens, but it was not the same feeling.
Of course there are people in Israel that don’t see the realities that I see, but everybody talks about — like with the Kennedy assassination or 9/11 — where were you on Oct. 7? Well, in the bomb shelter in my apartment. That’s where I was.
IJN: We have seen denialism of Hamas-perpetrated Oct. 7 atrocities in different circles. Does that exist in the forensic anthropology community?
I have not come across that in the community.
When I was in New York, I gave a presentation to anthropologists about the work I had been doing and what I’d been seeing, and there were certainly no denials there.
One of the things that actually really surprised me and also brought me a lot of comfort was that when I was in New York, it didn’t matter who I was speaking to. If it was the super liberal forensic anthropologists or the thin blue line police officers, every single time anybody heard that I came from Israel, they’d say, “You’re going through so much over there and we support you.” Everybody I talked to.
“I left my Jewish star at home because I was scared to wear it on the streets of New York because you hear all the stuff. But everybody was just so opening and welcoming and accepting and supportive.
“I got my hostages pin while I was there and ended up wearing it on my lanyard all the time.”
Peer has nearly completed her PhD through Tel Aviv University. Instead of a traditional dissertation, it is comprised of a collection of articles.
Oct. 7 created a delay, as Peer was working full time, but she has now published the necessary three articles. Next is university approval before being sent to an external adjudicator.
Post Oct. 7 she was concerned that her articles could be rejected due to anti-Semitism.
“On the one hand that is something that we have to think about, but on the other hand, it’s double blind. They don’t know who I am. I don’t know who they are. They don’t see my name or my affiliation with Tel Aviv University.
“As far as work is concerned [at the institute], I’m a doctor already,” says Peer. She has to remind them, “Not yet.”
There is a very good reason why her colleagues treat her with that level of respect. Forensic anthropology is not a developed area in Israel; Peer is the only one exclusively in her field in the entire country. In Israel, which sits at the “epicentre of ancient humanity,” anthropology is most often associated with remains that are thousands of years old.
In fact, there is no degree available in forensic anthropology offered in Israel, which is why she is formally part of the medical school.
Her supervisor, Prof. Racheli Sarig, is a dentist and dental anthropologist in TAU’s dental school. She argued for Peer’s work investigating burnt teeth. Even though Peer has submitted articles post-Oct. 7, her PhD research was all completed prior.
“Then Oct. 7 happened, and a vast majority of what I was looking at were burnt remains, including teeth. So what I had learned during my research became very, very relevant to my everyday work.
“Tying everything back to Oct. 7, one personal silver lining is that Prof. Tal Simmons, a well-known forensic anthropologist, came to Israel to volunteer, from her own pocket,” says Peer.
Like Peer, Simmons is a dual Israeli-American citizen. She has since become a mentor and friend to Peer.
The two submitted an abstract for the field’s largest annual conference, which was accepted for presentation. Among the reasons Peer could not attend was because the conference was in February, 2025 and by January “we already knew that around the time was when we would be getting returns of the hostages.
“From what I’ve seen and heard, the forensic anthropology community understands. I can talk to them in professional terms.”
Politics aside, “We have physical proof. I have seen it firsthand. I have handled it. Not getting into the politics of it, just the science. The fact that it happened and the fact that we have evidence of it happening because we have physically handled these things.
“If we can show pictures and tell personal stories of the things that we experience, then why would they have any reason to believe that we’re lying about it? Not to be cynical about it, but it would be bad for our reputation as forensic anthropologists to make it up.”
Earlier this year, when the institute was informed it would receive hostage remains, a strict protocol was enforced.
“We are put under an extra level of secrecy and the number of people who are allowed in the area and doing the examinations is limited,” explains Peer.
“We have wristbands, we had to put stickers over all the cameras on our phones. It had to be a very specific list (of people permitted entry). There were reporters who were standing outside the gate of the institute with microphones through the bars pointed at us, so you do not say a word, do not say a thing, do not make any facial expressions.”
Because of its sensitive nature, forensics, she explains, has very clear processes.
Especially after Oct. 7, she explains, the chains of responsibility and expertise became crystal clear.
By the time January and February, 2025 came, “I had been working long enough and doing the job long enough that people, regardless of how much older they are than me, will take my professional expertise as law,” she says.
“Something I’ve seen that I think is really important is, it doesn’t matter who it was, whether it was people like the head of the Institute, senior doctors, police officers, members of the Rabbinate, all of these people I come in contact with” — they all accept that Peer, as the institute’s forensic anthropologist, is the expert in that area.
She describes the work as collaborative, which she feels is necessary for what she describes as a small staff of about 50-60 who serve the entire country.
When examining the remains, she knows nothing of their identities in an effort to remove bias. This meant that in the aftermath of the Oct. 7 massacre, she was examining remains from victims — but also perpetrators.
After, when writing case reports, her findings will be discussed with the DNA lab or medical doctors. Each component is aware of its role. As a forensic anthropologist, Peer says, she would never determine cause of death, she explains. “That is just something that’s not in my field. That is a medical thing. All I can say is what I see on the bones. That’s it. So, you know, I can see that I see the signs of a specific sort of trauma, but whether that was enough to be a cause of death, I don’t know.”
Findings in forensic anthropology, like all anthropology, she says, are estimates and are typically presented as ranges. These can include age, sex, geographic area of origin. DNA testing of remains is what can provide certainty, as has been in the case of Oct. 7 victims.
According to Peer, there is no victim who has not yet been identified, but there are various remains that remain unidentified. “New research is happening all the time. Maybe in another five to ten years we will have a way to identify those remains.”
She is proud of the institute’s work in identifying each of the victims within such a short period of time. “We don’t have anybody that we don’t know what happened to them, if they were killed or taken captive.”
After a massacre like Oct. 7, a forensic anthropologist rarely examines a full skeleton, Peer explains. “It could be a single bone. Sometimes a day was spent on one case because you’re picking through to separate the bones from jewelry and bits of burnt cell phones and walls and floors and house decorations to create clean samples.
Nevertheless, says Peer, “I have an ongoing list of the specific people that I personally have helped with the identification,” and when her family lights yahrzeit candles at Pesach, she now lights candles for those specific people.
“This year I read my list of names. It was very difficult.
“You have to find the balance between thinking of the work as something scientific while also remembering that it was a real person not that long ago.
“It didn’t really hit me until I was reading this list of names.
“You need to have enough disconnect so you can do the work but you also need to give the proper respect to the remains that you’re working with. Later you can allow the emotional aspect in.”
Today, much of her work focuses on more traditional examinations, such as of archaeological finds or assisting with medical imaging.
“But we all are well aware that the work will not be done until every single person is returned.
Like the technical versus the emotional, it’s another important balance. “We can only prepare so much and in the meantime, I still have to do my regular work.”
© IJN 2025