Chen Kugel

Dr. Chen Kugel is one of Israel’s leading forensic pathologists. As director of the National Institute of Forensic Medicine, he works where medicine, law, national security, and human dignity meet: determining causes of death, helping identify the dead, providing scientific findings to courts, and assisting families and public authorities when medical truth carries profound personal and national consequences. His leadership following the attacks of October 7, 2023, when the institute examined remains and helped identify victims, was central to his recognition with the 2024 Israel Prize in the field of civilian heroism.

Kugel is also known for his efforts to strengthen professional integrity and accountability within Israeli forensic medicine. Years before he was appointed to lead the national institute, he raised concerns about practices he believed required reform and pressed for changes in its management and oversight. His career has demonstrated why forensic medicine is not merely a technical discipline. Its reliability affects criminal trials, the rights of victims and defendants, public confidence, and the way a country treats its dead and their families.

From Holon to medicine and military service

Chen Kugel was born in Holon on May 14, 1962. His grandfather, Dr. Chaim Kugel, was the first head of Holon’s local council and the city’s first mayor. Chen Kugel followed a different professional path, but one similarly rooted in public responsibility.

He studied medicine at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev through the Israel Defense Forces’ academic reserve program, completing his medical education in the mid-1980s. He then served in the IDF Medical Corps and specialized in forensic medicine. He attained the rank of lieutenant colonel and, in the reserves, commanded an IDF center responsible for collecting information about military fatalities. Such work requires medical precision and organizational discipline as well as sensitivity toward families awaiting reliable information in times of war or disaster.

Building expertise in forensic medicine

Kugel began working at the National Institute of Forensic Medicine in the early 1990s. From 1996 to 1998, he gained experience at forensic institutes in the United States, England, Australia, and South Africa. Exposure to several national systems broadened his understanding of postmortem examination, documentation, institutional oversight, and the respectful treatment of the dead.

Forensic medicine translates evidence found in the human body into findings that investigators, prosecutors, defense lawyers, and judges can use. A forensic pathologist must distinguish carefully between demonstrable fact, medical probability, and a conclusion that the available evidence cannot establish with certainty. The quality of that work can influence criminal responsibility, the identification of a victim, and a family’s ability to receive an authoritative account of what happened to a loved one.

During his work at the national institute and later in private practice, Kugel delivered expert opinions and testimony in cases requiring pathological analysis. Among other assignments, he prepared an official assessment concerning the likelihood that abducted IDF soldiers Ehud Goldwasser and Eldad Regev had died following their capture at the outbreak of the Second Lebanon War. He also provided forensic expertise concerning the death of the child Rose Pizem. These cases illustrate the range of responsibility borne by a forensic physician: a conclusion may become evidence in a murder investigation, inform a court, affect national decisions, or provide clarity to a family living with uncertainty.

Seeking reform and protecting the dignity of the dead

After observing the work of forensic institutes abroad, Kugel concluded that serious shortcomings existed in the Israeli institute, including practices involving management and respect for the dead. When his efforts to bring about change internally did not produce the results he sought, he turned to oversight bodies and the press. A series of reports published by Yedioth Ahronoth in 2000 became part of a broader public and institutional process that led to an inquiry and changes in the institute’s supervision.

Kugel also appealed to State Comptroller Eliezer Goldberg when he believed that his position and authority were being curtailed because he had raised these concerns. The comptroller instructed the Health Ministry not to harm his professional standing, and official reviews lent support to his complaints about irregularities. In 2005, Kugel left the national institute and established what was described as Israel’s first private institute providing forensic medical services. The venture expanded access to forensic expertise outside the government institute.

In 2007, the Movement for Quality Government in Israel presented him with its Knight of Quality Government award in the category honoring a fighter against corruption. The importance of his actions extended beyond a particular management dispute. They affirmed that a physician working inside a public institution must be able to report serious deficiencies without surrendering independent professional judgment.

Returning to lead the national institute

In 2013, Kugel was appointed director of the National Institute of Forensic Medicine. His return as head of the institution he had once sought to reform marked a significant turn in his career. In that role, he assumed responsibility for Israel’s principal public center for postmortem examinations, identification, forensic documentation, and medical opinions supplied to investigative and judicial authorities.

Leading such an institute also requires defending the professional independence of its physicians when their findings are inconvenient to one side of a legal dispute. Kugel expressed that principle when he sought to support Dr. Maya Forman’s right to present her professional position in legal proceedings after her opinion in the Tair Rada murder case became the subject of a dispute with state authorities. The attorney general ultimately allowed Kugel’s affidavit to be submitted with the clarification that it represented his personal opinion. The episode reflected his view that a medical expert in a public institution should not tailor a scientific conclusion to the state’s litigation position.

The national mission after October 7

Following the October 7, 2023 attacks, the National Institute of Forensic Medicine confronted one of the most difficult assignments in its history. Its teams examined victims’ remains, documented forensic findings, and assisted with identification. The condition of some of the bodies made the work exceptionally demanding, while the urgent need for answers had to be balanced against the requirements of scientific accuracy.

As the institute’s director, Kugel carried a dual responsibility: providing reliable medical information to public authorities and helping restore names and identities to people who had been murdered. Identification has profound practical, emotional, and religious importance in Israeli and Jewish life. It enables families to learn the fate of their loved ones, proceed with burial, and begin mourning. It also helps the state distinguish among those murdered, missing, or abducted.

In March 2024, it was announced that Kugel would receive the Israel Prize in the field of civilian heroism. The award recognized service that demanded medical expertise, emotional endurance, and public leadership at the same time. His contribution formed part of a much wider effort by physicians, laboratory personnel, identification specialists, and security authorities working to give families answers and preserve a reliable record of what had occurred.

Teaching, ethics, and community involvement

Alongside his clinical and public responsibilities, Kugel has taught medical and law students, including at Tel Aviv University, Bar-Ilan University, and other academic settings. Teaching across both disciplines is particularly valuable in forensic medicine. Physicians must understand how their findings will be tested in court, while lawyers need to appreciate both the power and the limits of medical science.

Kugel has also served on the board of Ogen, an organization that assists employees who expose wrongdoing and fear retaliation. The role extended into civic life an issue that had shaped his own career: protecting professionals who report failures within the institutions where they work.

Outside medicine, Kugel is an amateur jazz pianist who has played in clubs in Tel Aviv and elsewhere. He has been active in Israel’s LGBT community and participated as a musician in establishing the Gaysingers, the pride choir associated with Israel’s LGBT organization. He was also among the founders of Pride in Likud. His public presence as a senior professional who is openly gay has contributed to LGBT visibility in Israeli public institutions and society.

Why this legacy belongs in Moreshet

Chen Kugel merits inclusion in Moreshet because his work serves several of the deepest obligations of a responsible society: the pursuit of truth, the administration of justice, respect for the dead, and accountability to families seeking to know what happened to those they love. He has not only offered expert conclusions in consequential cases; he has also worked to strengthen the national institution on which Israel’s medical and legal systems depend in moments of profound crisis.

His influence can be seen in his defense of professional independence, his teaching of future physicians and lawyers, his work involving fallen soldiers and victims of terrorism, and his leadership after October 7. For Jewish and Israeli society, forensic identification connects exacting science with enduring duties of memory, burial, and human dignity. By documenting his contribution, Moreshet.com preserves a record of public service in which medical knowledge becomes an instrument of truth, justice, and social resilience.