{"id":64518,"date":"2021-11-25T01:00:50","date_gmt":"2021-11-25T06:00:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/?p=64518"},"modified":"2021-11-25T01:00:50","modified_gmt":"2021-11-25T06:00:50","slug":"hbo-spotlights-amare-stoudemires-journey-from-the-nba-to-orthodox-judaism","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/hbo-spotlights-amare-stoudemires-journey-from-the-nba-to-orthodox-judaism\/","title":{"rendered":"HBO spotlights Amar\u2019e Stoudemire\u2019s journey from the NBA to Orthodox Judaism"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>By SHIRA HANAU<\/p>\n<p>(JTA) \u2014 A new episode of HBO\u2019s \u201cReal Sports with Bryant Gumbel\u201d that aired Tuesday focused on Amar\u2019e Stoudemire and the retired NBA star\u2019s embrace of Orthodox Judaism.<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_64519\" style=\"width: 310px\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/11\/GettyImages-1298040870.jpg\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-64519\" class=\"wp-image-64519 size-medium lazyload\" data-src=\"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/11\/GettyImages-1298040870-300x167.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"167\" data-srcset=\"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/11\/GettyImages-1298040870-300x167.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/11\/GettyImages-1298040870-1024x568.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/11\/GettyImages-1298040870-768x426.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/11\/GettyImages-1298040870-1536x853.jpg 1536w, https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/11\/GettyImages-1298040870-2048x1137.jpg 2048w\" data-sizes=\"(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" src=\"data:image\/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAAAAACH5BAEKAAEALAAAAAABAAEAAAICTAEAOw==\" style=\"--smush-placeholder-width: 300px; --smush-placeholder-aspect-ratio: 300\/167;\" \/><noscript><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-64519\" class=\"wp-image-64519 size-medium\" src=\"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/11\/GettyImages-1298040870-300x167.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"167\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/11\/GettyImages-1298040870-300x167.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/11\/GettyImages-1298040870-1024x568.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/11\/GettyImages-1298040870-768x426.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/11\/GettyImages-1298040870-1536x853.jpg 1536w, https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/11\/GettyImages-1298040870-2048x1137.jpg 2048w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/noscript><\/a><\/p>\n<p id=\"caption-attachment-64519\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Amar&#8217;e Stoudemire attends the Pegasus World Cup Championship horse racing event in Hallandale Beach, Fla., Jan. 23, 2021. (Alexander Tamargo\/Getty Images for The Stronach Group)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p>Stoudemire, who has played for the New York Knicks and Phoenix Suns, converted to Judaism while living in Israel in August 2020. From 2016 to 2019, he played for the Israeli team Hapoel Jerusalem and later for Maccabi Tel Aviv. He remains a part owner of the Jerusalem team.<\/p>\n<p>He has since moved back to the United States and lives in Brooklyn, where HBO filmed him at morning prayers in his local synagogue.<\/p>\n<p>On the show, Stoudemire spoke about the transformation he underwent from NBA star to Israeli citizen to Orthodox Jew.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s very intense, you\u2019re leaving your old way of thinking, you\u2019re leaving your old way of action to a new concept,\u201d Stoudemire said.<\/p>\n<p>Stoudemire has spoken before about his difficult upbringing, including the death of his father when Stoudemire was just 12, and learning from his mother about his family\u2019s Hebrew Israelite roots at a young age. Ever since learning about his connection to the Hebrew Israelites, who believe they are descended from the ancient Israelites, Stoudemire began reading about Judaism and studying Jewish history. While playing basketball in Israel, Stoudemire began studying for conversion to Judaism and completed an Orthodox conversion last year.<\/p>\n<p>In the HBO show, Stoudemire, who is 39, discusses his struggles learning Hebrew.&nbsp;\u201cYeah it is hard to learn, especially at my age,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>But even with the challenges, Stoudemire feels he is on the right path.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s just been like a quest for searching for emet, searching for truth,\u201d he said. He added: \u201cI\u2019m for sure a different person than I was before.\u201d<\/p>\n<div style=\"padding-bottom:20px; padding-top:10px;\" class=\"hupso-share-buttons\"><!-- Hupso Share Buttons - https:\/\/www.hupso.com\/share\/ --><a class=\"hupso_toolbar\" href=\"https:\/\/www.hupso.com\/share\/\"><img decoding=\"async\" data-src=\"https:\/\/static.hupso.com\/share\/buttons\/share-medium.png\" style=\"border:0px; padding-top: 5px; float:left;\" alt=\"Share Button\" src=\"data:image\/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAAAAACH5BAEKAAEALAAAAAABAAEAAAICTAEAOw==\" class=\"lazyload\" \/><noscript><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/static.hupso.com\/share\/buttons\/share-medium.png\" style=\"border:0px; padding-top: 5px; float:left;\" alt=\"Share Button\"\/><\/noscript><\/a><script type=\"text\/javascript\">var hupso_services_t=new Array(\"Twitter\",\"Facebook\",\"Google Plus\",\"Pinterest\",\"Linkedin\",\"Tumblr\",\"Email\");var hupso_background_t=\"#EAF4FF\";var hupso_border_t=\"#66CCFF\";var hupso_toolbar_size_t=\"medium\";var hupso_image_folder_url = \"\";var hupso_url_t=\"\";var hupso_title_t=\"HBO%20spotlights%20Amar%E2%80%99e%20Stoudemire%E2%80%99s%20journey%20from%20the%20NBA%20to%20Orthodox%20Judaism\";<\/script><script type=\"text\/javascript\" src=\"https:\/\/static.hupso.com\/share\/js\/share_toolbar.js\"><\/script><!-- Hupso Share Buttons --><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":64519,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1491],"tags":[11866,1009,8781,8790,8795,1961,8788],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64518"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=64518"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64518\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":64521,"href":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64518\/revisions\/64521"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/64519"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=64518"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=64518"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=64518"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}