For Amar’e Stoudemire, Farming Is Holy Work

Hebrew Israelite basketball star Amar’e Stoudemire is working the land at his Hudson Valley farm, and quoting scripture as he’s doing it.
In a photo uploaded to Instagram on Sunday, Stoudemire, wearing work gloves and heavy boots, stands in front of a tractor on his 190-acre farm, located about two hours from New York City on the Hudson River.
“Therefore the Lord God sent him forth from the garden of Eden to till the ground from whence he was taken,” Stoudemire captioned the photo, using a passage from the book of Genesis and adding a string of hashtags — including “kosher,” “shalom” and “blessed.”
Stoudemire calls himself a Hebrew Israelite and was baptized in a Jesus-believing Chicago congregation called Israel of God. He also produced a documentary on the large Hebrew Israelite community of Dimona, Israel, and remains close to that group.
Hebrew Israelites are people of color, mostly African American, who identify as genealogical descendants of the ancient Israelites. The movement is broad and diverse.
Stoudemire relocated to Israel last year in move that was both professional and spiritual. Stoudemire, a six-time NBA All-Star, spent last season playing for Hapoel Jerusalem in the Israeli Premier League, where they won the championship. He saw his move to Jerusalem as a return to his ancestral homeland.
It is uncertain whether Stoudemire will return to Israel to play again this season.
Email Sam Kestenbaum at [email protected] and follow him on Twitter at @skestenbaum
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
Film & TV What Gal Gadot has said about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict
- 4
Fast Forward Cory Booker proclaims, ‘Hineni’ — I am here — 19 hours into anti-Trump Senate speech
In Case You Missed It
-
News Who would protect New York Jews better? Cuomo and Lander trade attacks on the campaign trail
-
News Rabbis revolt over LGBTQ+ club, exposing fight over queer acceptance at Yeshiva University
-
Opinion In Qatargate fiasco, Netanyahu’s ‘witch hunt’ narrative takes cues from Trump
-
Yiddish די הגדה ווי אַ לעבעדיקער דענקמאָל פֿון אַשכּנזישער פּאָעזיעThe Haggadah as a living monument to Ashkenazi poetry
אַמאָל זענען די פּייטנים, מיסטישע דיכטער־וויזיאָנערן, געווען אויבן־אָן בײַ די פֿראַנצויזישע און דײַטשישע ייִדן.
-
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.