Leah Korostyshevskaya
Brooklyn, New York
How is your Hero working to make the world a better place?
Every day my hero Leah volunteers to make this world a better place. She is someone who exemplifies what it means to be a true jewish mensch. She is a young passionate leader and is single-handedly responsible for creating a community for the young Russian Jews in the Brooklyn area. She has touched the lives of thousands of RAJE participants and alumni and is the soul of RAJEon. Her stories of humanitarian efforts include planning trips to Israel for the Russian Jewish community and ensuring they are fun, throwing sheva brachos for newly married young couples (which means she will be cooking until 3am) or even spending countless nights calling community members helping them find a place for shabbat dinners, ensuring they have a place to sleep. She exemplifies a true good Jewish woman and is even able to inspire many trip participants to keep Shabbat, but on tefillin, keeping kosher, and continue their Jewish education. Moreover, Leah is instrumental in helping to create RAJEon, an organizations focused on the young Russian Jewish professional alumni or RAJE in Brooklyn and the tri-state area. She is key in putting together chesed events, rosh chodesh events, key speakers, planning Shabbats and trips to Israel. She is the young heart of the young Russian Jews of Brooklyn.
How has your Hero impacted your life and inspired you?
Leah's tireless passion and optimism for life had a great impact on my own. Leah is my driving factor in chesed and education in the young Russian Jewish world. She inspires me to keep going whenever I am in doubt. My family keeps a kosher kitchen because she took the time to explain and answer all my mother's questions on it. She threw my little sister a Shabbat rooftop dinner because my house was under construction. She answers all my and everyone else's inquisitive questions on Judaism and she always makes time to lend a helping hand or ear.