Former New York Knicks player Eddy Curry has a new enemy: anti-Semitism.
The former NBA player, who played five seasons with the Knicks and won an NBA championship with LeBron James’ Miami Heat in 2012, has been campaigning for the release of 1-year-old Israeli boy, Kfir Bibas, who has spent most of his life in captivity by Hamas.
Vivas was kidnapped by the terrorist group along with his four-year-old brother Ariel and his parents Siri and Yarden Vivas during the October 7 attack.
Curry, 41, recently travelled to the Holy Land with his wife and met with the Bivas family as part of Project Max’s “Sport Speaks Up” campaign, an organisation that uses sport to combat anti-Semitism, racism and intolerance.
Curry, who was drafted by his hometown Chicago Bulls in 2001, adopted Kfir Bibas and has made the toddler’s release a top priority.
“When I was in New York, I lost a child to gun violence, and my world has changed ever since. To actually experience that kind of loss and to know that there were hostages and that there were children involved, it was devastating,” Curry told The Washington Post.
Curry’s ex-girlfriend, Nova Henry, 24, and her infant daughter, Ava, were shot and killed in 2009 by Henry’s lawyer, Frederick Goings, who was representing her in a child support lawsuit against Curry.
Goings and Henry became romantically involved.
“We want their kids to come home just as much as we want our kids to come home. There are kids in America just like our kids who are away from home and exposed to the most heinous acts that anybody could imagine,” said Curry, who retired from basketball in 2012.
“On August 5th, my eldest daughter Ariel [turns 5]”Unfortunately, we now have to plan another big event with balloons, cake and singers … but the birthday boy will not be there,” said Siri Bibas’ cousin, Yossi Schneider. “At first we were counting the hours since he was kidnapped, then we started counting the days, then the months, and in two months it will be a year.”
“The common goal here is to bring as many hostages home as possible,” Curry added.
