Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
Fast Forward

Amar’e Stoudemire To Return To Israeli Basketball, If No NBA Team Wants Him

JERUSALEM (JTA) — Former NBA All-Star Amar’e Stoudemire will return to the Israeli Hapoel Jerusalem basketball team, if he does not secure a position in the NBA.

The team made the announcement Sunday, saying that the all-star’s return was conditioned on him not finding a spot on an NBA team.

Stoudemire played for the New York Knicks and Phoenix Suns among other teams in a 16-year NBA career.

Stoudemire previously played for the team for a year, and left in September 2017, citing a desire to return to the NBA. Israeli media reported at the time that he had a rocky relationship with the Hapoel Jerusalem coach and his son was barred from playing on a local team because he is not an Israeli citizen.

Stoudemire is a partial owner of Hapoel, which he had to suspend in order to play.

During the 2016-2017 season, the team with his help won Israeli championships and reached the semifinals of the EuroCup tournament.

Stoudemire identifies with the Hebrew Israelites, African-Americans who believe they are connected to the biblical Israelites, and observes Jewish holidays. He told HBO sports reporter Jon Frankel at an event at Harvard University in April that he is “in the process” of converting.

A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.

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. Support our work by becoming a Forward Member and connect with our journalism and your community.

—  Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

Join our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.

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 credit the Forward, retain our pixel and preserve our canonical link 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.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.