A former NBA player has been using his celebrity prestige not to promote basketball but rather to advocate for Israel’s hostages.

Eddy Curry, once a star center for the New York Knicks, recently touched down in Israel with a mission far removed from his days of slam dunks and rebounds. As part of the Sports Speaks Up campaign for Project Max, an organization combating antisemitism and intolerance, the 41-year-old met with members of the Bibas family.

He is now advocating for the release of Kfir Bibas, a 1-year-old Israeli boy who has spent most of his short life in Hamas captivity along with his 4-year-old brother and parents.

Curry’s involvement in this cause is deeply personal. In 2009, he experienced a tragedy that reshaped his worldview when his ex-girlfriend and their infant daughter Ava were murdered in Chicago.

“Back when I was in New York, I lost a child to gun violence. Ever since then … it just reshaped my world. To actually go through a loss like that, to know that there are hostages and that there are children involved, that just hit me in a certain place,” Curry told The New York Post.

“We want their children to come back home, just like we would want our children to come back home. There are children just like ours here in America that are not home, that are being exposed to some of the most heinous acts anyone can imagine,” he said.

Curry rose to prominence as the fourth overall pick in the 2001 NBA draft, selected by his hometown Chicago Bulls. His career took him through the bright lights of Madison Square Garden, where he spent five seasons with the Knicks, before ultimately clinching an NBA championship with the Miami Heat in 2012.

Unlike the parade of celebrity voices who fuel today’s cycle of misinformation and antisemitism, Curry deserves immense credit for his heroism in standing up for the truth.