Maura Ruskin: An artistic aliyah success story

At Maura’s Pottery Studio in Zichron Ya’acov, Maura Ruskin sells her handmade pottery and leads workshops, guiding participants in creating their own ceramics using the wheel and the slab roller. She also teaches painting, collage-making, and dried-flower arranging.

“I call my studio ‘my empire,’ and I welcome others to come and experience it with me,” says the mother of four Sabras and grandmother of a growing brood of Israeli grandchildren. 

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Maura’s studio is located across the lane from where her husband, Adam, runs his online outdoor equipment business, OneHouse. It’s just off the midrachov, the pedestrian main street, filled with small shops and eateries. The Ruskins live on the midrachov, too. 

In 2001, when they first arrived there, they were among the earlier English-speaking, National Religious residents of this charming wine country town at the southern end of the Carmel mountain range, overlooking the Mediterranean Sea. Today there’s a strong and growing Anglo presence in Zichron. 

They both started off in other professions. Maura was a landscape architect, and Adam was an attorney.

“I feel like I’m one of these examples of being able to change your life,” says Maura. “I’ve found something that gives me purpose and meaning. I’m excited to get up in the morning and get to work in my studio.”

Maura was born in Brooklyn to non-observant parents who chose to send their two daughters to Jewish day schools. As young adults, both sisters decided to live in Israel. 

When Maura was 11, the family moved to Englewood, New Jersey, where she graduated from the Frisch School, a coed yeshiva high school. At Barnard College, she majored in environmental science way before climate change became a household word. Following her graduation, she worked for the New York City Department of Parks and Recreation as assistant to the deputy commissioner for planning. She went on to earn a degree in landscape architecture, and subsequently worked for the Central Park Conservancy, among other places. 

In 1989 she met Adam, who had grown up in Anchorage, Alaska. They met at an Israel event Maura coordinated at the historic 1848 landmark Arsenal building in Central Park. They were wed in 1990 and made aliyah in 1992. Maura’s first job in Israel was as a landscape architect in Jerusalem.

The Ruskins moved to Zichron Ya’acov, wanting to forge a new path, both personally and professionally. For years, they kept chickens in their yard – and even a donkey for a short time. They switched to a mostly whole-food, plant-based diet nearly a decade ago, paring down to basics.

“People say it’s hard, but I see it as simple,” Maura says. 

Their four children, ranging in age from 20 to 31, include two army officers. Their oldest son, a reserve officer in Oketz, the IDF’s canine unit, was wounded in Gaza and is now back at work after being hospitalized for a month, followed by months in rehab. He and his family have just moved to Pardess Hanna. The second Ruskin son is a medical student in Beersheba, who lives in Carmei Gat with his family. Their daughter, a schoolteacher, lives with her family in Eli. Their youngest son is a yeshiva student in Mitzpe Ramon. 

Maura is an active supporter of Yeshivat Bnei David in Eli. One of the projects she shepherded was the English translation of Siman Labanim, a popular collection of lessons on the weekly Torah portion by the head of Bnei David’s post-army program, Rav Eliezer Kashtiel. She keeps copies in her studio, ready for distribution.

Welcome to Ruskin's artistic empire

Her pivot to pottery and art in general was fairly recent. She had dabbled in pottery in New York and later in Jerusalem but had not engaged in any hands-on arts for about 15 years. She had already earned a master’s in art history but did not take a direct path from there, working as a technical writer for several years.

In 2014, spurred by the war with Gaza, Maura explains, she felt it was time for a restart. She slowly returned to drawing, watercolor painting, and doing pottery. During the COVID pandemic, the idea of opening her own studio percolated. She and Adam transformed a store they owned into a studio, and slowly Maura’s business developed.

She attributes much of her transformation to listening to “tons of podcasts” about self-development and art and business in general. She and several friends who are also entrepreneurs (a photographer, a tour guide, a yoga instructor, a lactation consultant, and a caterer) formed their own “mastermind” to bounce ideas off one another about building their businesses.

“I’ve never worked harder, and I’ve never had a greater sense of gratification,” she says. 

“I wish I had done this many years ago. But if you’d told me 20 years ago that I was going to open a pottery studio on the midrachov, I would have said you were crazy. It was a process – I’ve learned there aren’t any shortcuts in life – and it has changed my life. I believe that this change attracted positive things into my life and that the studio is a kind of mission where good things happen.” 

Seeing her studio as “a hub for opportunities to bring bracha to this world,” Maura has also hosted several challah baking sessions within its walls – on which her collages, drawings, and paintings are attractively displayed.

“While I consider myself an introvert, the studio has made me a more open and accepting person,” she says.

“I never know who’s going to walk through the door. I get to meet people from a true cross-section of Israeli society, as well as people from all over the world. Whoever it is, I give them my best so that they will feel they are getting a satisfying experience.” 

Maura has some sound advice for anyone considering aliyah: “Come early. The earlier you come, the better command of the language you will have, and a better understanding of the culture.” And, she adds, it’s not necessary to finish one’s education abroad first. “Study here, where degrees are more affordable.”■

Maura Ruskin, 58 From New York City to Jerusalem, 1992; to Zichron Ya’acov, 2001

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