Neil Krieger, 78, Biotech Consultant Who Fought For Civil Rights
(JTA) — When Neil Krieger was a graduate student at Harvard University in the mid-1960s, he decided he had to do something about racism.
Not content to watch from the sidelines as others battled for civil rights, he joined the Boston branch of the Congress of Racial Equality and began visiting local businesses, imploring them to hire African-Americans.
“They would go to a bank and see there were no black tellers, so they would meet with the head of the bank and tell him, ‘You should find a black teller,’” said his daughter Hilary Krieger, an editor at NBC News. “And they would find candidates who could do the job.”
“They weren’t trying to shame people or cause trouble, but to make a difference in the lives of the people,” she added.
Krieger, who died on April 29 in Boston from complications of COVID-19 at 78, was born in Spring Valley, New York, in 1942 to parents who ran a series of restaurants. He spent his teen years living in the storied Hotel Bossert, also known as the Waldorf-Astoria of Brooklyn. The hotel was a favored hangout of the Brooklyn Dodgers, and two members of the team actually attended Krieger’s bar mitzvah.
After graduating from Cornell University, he went on to earn a doctorate in biochemistry from Harvard and found West Rock Associates, a Boston-based consultancy that helps biotechnology startups obtain funding. He also served on the faculty of the medical schools at Harvard and the University of Pennsylvania.
“He had a very tough childhood in many ways, and the type of childhood you would not expect a person to go on [from] and be a model of what it means to be a great husband and father,” Hilary Kriger said. “But my dad wanted to be a great husband and father, so he carved his own path and didn’t let how he had been raised or his experiences define what would matter for him and how he would be toward other people.”
She said that he had a wicked sense of humor, noting that he coined the word orbisculate to describe the feeling of getting the juice from a citrus fruit in your eye.
“My dad enjoyed a long, full life,” she wrote in a remembrance published on the NBC News website on May 27. “It was the one that he wanted, and he lived it on his terms, prioritizing his love for his wife and children and friends over making money or earning accolades. And he expressed that love — and laughter and tears and frustration and whatever other emotions came along — so that every moment and every relationship were experienced in their fullness and nothing was left unsaid.”
Krieger is survived by his wife, Susan, and children Hilary and Jonathan.
The post Neil Krieger, 78, biotech consultant who fought for civil rights appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
The Forward is free to read, but it isn’t free to produce

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward.
At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse.
Readers like you make it all possible. We’ve started our Passover Fundraising Drive, and we need 1,800 readers like you to step up to support the Forward by April 21. Members of the Forward board are even matching the first 1,000 gifts, up to $70,000.
This is a great time to support independent Jewish journalism, because every dollar goes twice as far.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
2X match on all Passover gifts!
Most Popular
- 1
News A Jewish Republican and Muslim Democrat are suddenly in a tight race for a special seat in Congress
- 2
Fast Forward The NCAA men’s Final Four has 3 Jewish coaches
- 3
Fast Forward Cory Booker proclaims, ‘Hineni’ — I am here — 19 hours into anti-Trump Senate speech
- 4
Film & TV What Gal Gadot has said about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict
In Case You Missed It
-
Books From an Italian Holocaust survivor, a Kafkaesque nightmare of imprisonment under fascism
-
Film & TV Why Robby said the Shema on ‘The Pitt’
-
Yiddish World Children taking part in a Seder while hiding from the Nazis
-
Fast Forward ADL upgrades 19 colleges’ antisemitism ‘grades,’ as some enact new policies
-
Shop the Forward Store
100% of profits support our journalism
Republish This Story
Please read before republishing
We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines.
You must comply with the following:
- Credit the Forward
- Retain our pixel
- Preserve our canonical link in Google search
- Add a noindex tag in Google search
See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.
To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.