Amar’e Stoudemire Launches Campaign for Israeli Hatzalah

Image by Deborah Danan
New York Knicks forward Amar’e Stoudemire has launched a campaign to raise money for the volunteer-based ambulance service United Hatzalah of Israel.
The campaign is called “Amar’e Saves,” and people can pledge money per point that Stoudemire scores over the course of the 2014 season, which started Wednesday night.
“In today’s society, which is so fast, we need to be doing something about saving lives quicker, and United Hatzalah is doing that,” Stoudemire said.
Through the first two games of this season, the former six-time all-star has scored 20 points, resulting in $10,960. When normal “direct donations” are added in, “Amar’e Saves” has so far raised a total of $29,970 for United Hatzalah.
United Hatzalah is a free emergency medical service started by Eli Beer in 2006. It is headquartered in Israel but has affiliated chapters in cities around the world, including Panama, Sao Paolo, and Buenos Aires. The organization’s volunteers are equipped with ambucycles, which get the volunteers to patients quicker than the average ambulance. United Hatzalah is not affiliated with Chevra Hatzalah, a similar organization that was linked to the Rapfogel corruption scandal last year.
Donors for “Amar’e Saves” can form teams and compete with other teams. Students at the Yeshiva University High School For Boys and Solomon Schechter in Westchester, New York, for example, have formed teams.
Stoudemire, who identifies as culturally Jewish, is a co-owner of the Hapoel Jerusalem team. He also has a Star of David tattoo and eats Kosher food.
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
Film & TV What Gal Gadot has said about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict
- 2
News A Jewish Republican and Muslim Democrat are suddenly in a tight race for a special seat in Congress
- 3
Culture How two Jewish names — Kohen and Mira — are dividing red and blue states
- 4
Opinion Mike Huckabee said there’s ‘no such thing as a Palestinian.’ It’s worth thinking about what that means
In Case You Missed It
-
Fast Forward The NCAA men’s Final Four has 3 Jewish coaches
-
Fast Forward Yarden Bibas says ‘I am here because of Trump’ and pleads with him to stop the Gaza war
-
Fast Forward Trump’s plan to enlist Elon Musk began at Lubavitcher Rebbe’s grave
-
Film & TV In this Jewish family, everybody needs therapy — especially the therapists themselves
-
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.