Aryeh Neier

Aryeh Neier (born April 22, 1937) is a German-born American human rights activist and attorney who co-founded Human Rights Watch in 1978 and directed it as executive director for twelve years, establishing rigorous, evidence-based investigations into state-sponsored abuses across dozens of countries. Earlier, he served as executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union from 1970 to 1978, during which he championed absolute free speech protections, including defending the National Socialist Party of America's right to march in the Jewish suburb of Skokie, Illinois , despite his own family's escape from Nazi Germany . From 1993 to 2012, Neier led the Open Society Foundations as president, overseeing billions in grants to promote open societies, legal reform, and accountability for atrocities in post-communist states and beyond.

Born in Berlin to Jewish parents amid the rise of Nazism , Neier and his family fled to England in 1939 and then to the United States in 1941, shaping his lifelong focus on rights violations rooted in authoritarianism. His work transitioned from U.S. civil liberties—addressing draft resistance, police misconduct, and campus freedoms during the Vietnam era—to global human rights, where he advocated for universal standards applicable even to adversarial regimes, authoring reports that influenced international tribunals and policy shifts. Neier has written seven books, including Defending My Enemy (1979), which details the principled defense of unpopular speech, and taught human rights law at institutions such as New York University and Sciences Po . Despite accolades like awards from bar associations and honorary degrees, his organizations faced scrutiny for selective emphasis on certain conflicts, though Neier maintained that empirical documentation, not ideology, drove priorities. In recent years, as a Holocaust-era refugee, he has applied genocide criteria to Israel's Gaza operations, sparking debate over consistency in rights advocacy.

Aryeh Neier was born on April 22, 1937, in Berlin , Germany , into a Jewish family. His parents, Wolf Neier, a teacher, and Gitla Bendzinska Neier, had originated from territory now part of Poland , where they were born around 1900, before relocating to Berlin after World War I . The family had resided in Germany for less than two decades, and Neier recalls no personal experiences from his infancy there, having departed as an infant.

In 1939, amid escalating Nazi persecution of Jews , the family fled Germany for England when Neier was two years old, joining other refugees . Neier's earliest memory is a hazy recollection of the boat voyage to England , possibly imagined in part. He and his sister initially stayed in a hostel for refugee children for about a year before reuniting with their parents in London , where they attended school. Upon arrival in England , English became the family's primary language, supplanting the limited German Neier later retained.

In 1947, eight years after fleeing Germany , the Neiers immigrated to the United States , settling in New York City , where Aryeh became a naturalized citizen. Most of Neier's extended family perished in the Holocaust . His Hebrew first name, Aryeh, translates to " lion ," underscoring the family's Jewish roots.

Aryeh Neier was born on April 22, 1937, in Berlin , Germany , to a middle-class Jewish family; his father, Wolf Neier, was a teacher, and his mother was Gitla Neier. In August 1939, as Nazi persecution intensified, the family fled to England as refugees, where they remained until immigrating to the United States in 1947 and settling in New York City ; Neier later became a naturalized U.S. citizen.

Neier attended Stuyvesant High School in New York City , an elite public institution, where he developed early civil libertarian inclinations.