Former NFL, NBA, and MLB stars are part of the #SportsSpeaksUp campaign to “adopt” Israeli hostages by bringing attention to their plight and advocating for their release on social media. Project Max, a movement to fight racism, antisemitism, and intolerance through sports, spearheaded the campaign with the Maccabi World Union.
Eric Rubin, Israel based Global Ambassador for the Maccabi World Union and Executive Director of Project Max, explained to The Jerusalem Post how every athlete who he asked to be a part of the campaign wanted to come on board. “This, to them, and to me, and I think to most people, is not an issue about Israel and Hamas or Israel and the Palestinians,” he stated, “This is about humanity.”
Rubin matched up athletes with the hostages he felt they could identify with by looking at their personal histories and family situations. Former NBA star Eddy Curry, who played for the Chicago Bulls and the New York Knicks and won the Miami Heat’s 2012 championship, tragically lost his 10-month-old daughter, Ava, to gun violence in 2009.
Rubin thought to match him with Kfir Bibas, who was abducted from his home in Kibbutz Nir Oz on October 7, 2023, when he was nine months old.
Hamas video footage shows Kfir’s mother, Shiri, 32, looking petrified as she holds Kfir and his four-year-old brother Ariel in her arms while surrounded by terrorists. Her husband, Yarden, was also taken hostage.
Curry told The Jerusalem Post that if this story “doesn’t make you just put down whatever side you’re representing and say, ‘this is what’s right, this is what matters,’ and just make you feel something, then you’re a monster.” He added, “I couldn’t save my child, and I’m just praying that I could be one of the small voices to help save these children.”
Curry flew to Israel on July 16, 2024, for a weeklong trip sponsored by Athletes for Israel, a non-profit organization that combats antisemitism by bringing athletes to the Holy Land.
He played basketball with about 60 kids of all ages. He visited religious sites, including the Western Wall, where the emptiness was a palpable reminder to him that the country was at war.
Curry met with emergency volunteers from United Hatzalah, Israel’s emergency medical services, and visited Save a Child’s Heart (SACH), a humanitarian organization that provides life-saving cardiac care to children worldwide.
He described seeing Zambian mothers of children receiving medical treatment at SACH, cooking food for the children there, and surgeons teaching doctors from different countries how to perform cardiac procedures.
“People will say this or that, but they had a couple of Palestinian people that they were teaching this open-heart surgery technique to,” Curry said.
He visited the Nova music festival site, where 364 people were murdered on October 7. “You can’t even describe what it feels like to be standing right there…to see and know that all that life was lost right there was unbelievable,” he said.
Curry had lunch at a restaurant in Sderot, a town close to Nir Oz, the kibbutz where the Bibas family was abducted. It was the first area Hamas attacked, demolishing the police station and murdering approximately 30 civilians and police officers stationed there, according to a previous report in The Jerusalem Post.1
“We were there for maybe 10 minutes,” Curry said. “My wife and I just sitting there, trying to keep it together. She knew that I was feeling something because she just kept touching my hand.”
Suddenly, sirens signaling incoming missiles went off, and Curry said that he and his wife ran into a bunker and were “crying our eyes out.” Curry said that even though he grew up seeing violence and death in the South Side of Chicago, he was very afraid. “All I’m thinking is, this is not someone with a gun. This is not a gang member, this is not a drive-by shooter, this is a missile. What can I do to protect my wife against a missile?”
He observed that while he was shaken up, Israelis who were used to the chaos carried on with normal conversations and went back to the restaurant to finish their meals.
When Curry went with his wife to a beach in Tel Aviv, he described seeing the Israelis there also exhibiting the same sense of normality and joy, even during the most extenuating circumstances of war. He said the beach was filled with people dancing and listening to music. “They’re still able to enjoy life…You can’t even see the sand, there’s so many people on the beach…and they made space for me and my wife. They were so appreciative of us being there.”
He added, “These people are heroes, not only to people to actually help save a life, but I think the unsung heroes are just the people of Israel.”
Curry met Shiri Bibas’s cousins, Yosi Shnaider and Jimmy Miller, in Hostage Square in Tel Aviv. He described the atmosphere as heartbreaking but hopeful. Curry relayed how someone told him that Hostage Square should not be thought of as somber but rather a place “where we’re celebrating in advance the return of our families.”
Shnaider and Miller grew up in Israel with Shiri and are both very close to her. Shnaider expressed his gratitude to Curry for coming to see him and told The Jerusalem Post that he is “a big person with a huge heart.” Shnaider added, “It’s very unpopular to be to support us right now…it takes a lot of courage…We appreciate it.”
Curry, who is Christian and from Texas, said that people are extremely supportive of Israel, where he lives, and was shocked when Shnaider and Miller told him, “Everyone’s against us.” Curry said he reassured them, “Everyone is not against you. I’m not against you. Before I even met you, I wasn’t against you, and I can assure you there are other people like me in America who are not against you.”
After the cousins shared stories about their family with Curry and his wife, they all went to a beautiful Italian restaurant across the street. “We just talked for four hours, and not even just about the kidnapping or October 7,” Curry explained. “We talked about their favorite foods…about who makes the best hummus.”
Curry noticed that Shnaider brought a weapon with him. He said that even though Shnaider was smiling, “You could feel the intensity…you can see the seriousness of the situation.”
Curry relayed how he could not imagine the magnitude of what the cousins are experiencing, and described them as “stronger than any humans I’ve met before.”
He added, “I’ve lost a child to gun violence, so I know what it is like. But they don’t know whether to mourn or whether to fight….You can’t even begin to heal until you know what’s going on.”
Curry said they expressed to him their concerns about if the little boys were getting enough nutrition and if Kfir was learning how to walk while being held captive.
Shnaider told The Jerusalem Post about how the pain of not knowing weighs on him and his family. “It’s very difficult. We have no information about Shiri and the kids at all.”
More time in captivity than as a free baby
He said that Kfir had spent more days of his life being held hostage than as a free baby, just beginning to explore the world. He described Kfir’s four-year-old brother, Ariel, as “a red-haired kid who’s full of energy and used to run around the kibbutz and play and enjoy life…He loves superheroes.”
Shnaider disclosed that he found out from hostages who were released 250 days ago that Kfir and Ariel’s father, Yarden, was “locked in a dungeon by himself separated from the other hostages – in a very dark place with no place to move, only a place for his mattress. They didn’t allow him to speak with the other hostages.” He said they heard that Yarden was “very scared” and had lost a lot of weight.
Shnaider relayed how a few minutes before a hostage who is a nurse was released, “they forced her and another hostage to tell him that Shiri and the kids had been killed.” He said that right after she told Yarden the horrifying information, “they just took her away, and unfortunately, he doesn’t know the truth.”
Ariel’s fifth birthday is on August 5th. “It’s going to be a dream birthday for every kid…but the only thing that’s going to be missing is Ariel,” Shnaider said.
A birthday party for Ariel will start in Habima Square in Tel Aviv and then will move to Hostage Square, where people will make speeches and sing songs for Ariel.
Shnaider is asking for people around the world to light a candle on Ariel’s birthday at 5 PM Israel time “to make a wish for him and all of the other hostages to come back.”
More information about Project Max can be found here:https://www.projectmax.club
https://www.jpost.com/israel-news/defense-news/article-763198
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