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Meet Ohio’s only Jewish cattle farmer
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By Nina Polien Light
Freelance Writer
David Sigel inspects six pregnant heifers as they’re unloaded from a trailer.
“Nice heifer,” he says approvingly, singling one out. “Her legs are straight. Her muzzle is wide. She has a lot of conformation (depth). That’s a number-one beautiful heifer there. She’s a beauty.”
Sigel, 76, smiles and turns to a denim-clad employee. “Charles, vaccinate them and put them in Pen One.”
Sigel previously owned these cows but sold them as yearlings to a breeder. When the inseminated heifers neared the end of their nine-month gestation period, Sigel bought them back. “Now they will birth and give lots of milk,” he explains in his folksy drawl as his 10-year-old Australian Blue Shepherd, Zachary, follows him.
Sigel’s Damar Farm, named after himself and his wife Marilyn, 71, is Ohio’s last Jewish-owned cattle farm. At 200 acres, it is also considerably more modest than the 337-acre average of Ohio’s 75,000 farms, according to 2007 reports from the USDA’s National Agricultural Statistics Service.
“We don’t need more than that,” Sigel says of the acreage.
Located in tiny Homerville, a rural village in the heart of Medina County’s Amish country, the farm moves about 10,000 head of cattle annually. About half are dairy heifers that Sigel feeds, handles and supplies to domestic and international dairies. (No milking is done at Damar.) Damar also owns beef cattle, raises corn for the silo, and owns bulls across the country.
“On average, a good-quality heifer sells for $2,200-$2,500,” Sigel says as the new arrivals are led to their pens.
Cattle farming is a mercantile business that rises and falls with the economy, so Sigel is experiencing the same hardships as other business owners today. Business has declined 20% in recent months, he says, largely because cash flow is limited and banks are making it difficult to borrow money.
This morning, Sigel searches his mail in vain for payment from a dairy in Saudi Arabia; it cost the farmer $2,000 to ship each animal to the Middle East, and he’s depending on the income the cattle generate. In the past, he’s dealt with Japanese and Korean dairies. Most of his current business is with Dutch-owned dairies in western Ohio and Indiana, as well as with milk-producers in New Mexico and Texas.
“There’s a computer, but I don’t use it,” Sigel says dismissively. “My wife uses it. I do business the old-fashioned way.”
Marilyn Sigel serves as vice president of Damar Farm. “That entails paying bills, answering clients’ calls and questions, keeping them abreast of the market, and giving general input,” she explains.
Running the farm is “a lot of stress,” acknowledges Sigel, a Korean War veteran and Ohio State University graduate who began his day at 6:30 a.m., despite returning from a cattle sale at 11:30 the previous evening. “We handle a lot of money, and our (profit) margins are narrow.”
For example, slaughter cows bring in a mere 2% profit per head; profit on dairy cows starts at $25 per head.
Sigel’s business expenses include fuel, veterinary services, feed corn and hay, as well as wages for two full-time farm hands, three semi drivers, and casual Amish labor. Still, Sigel maintains, “I’m a successful businessman who handles cattle.”
So what’s a nice Jewish man doing in the bovine business, living 40-50 miles away from the nearest pocket of other Jews? These include his siblings Norm Sigel and Sara Braham of Shaker Heights.
“I come from a long line of cattlemen,” boasts Sigel, who says the only other Jewish-American cattleman he’s aware of lives in Lubbock, Texas. “My dad (Max Sigel) was in the business for 50 years.”
Max Sigel left what is now Lithuania, where his family eked out a living buying and selling cattle, to escape being sent to Siberia by the Russian Army. After stops in London and South Africa, where he continued to deal with cattle but was uncomfortable with the persecution of black people, he eventually made his way to Elyria.
“My dad asked for directions to a Jewish farmer,” Sigel explains, and he was introduced to the Lesnick family. He procured work in Elyria, married the Lesnicks’ daughter Ruth, and continued his family’s cattle tradition.
Along the way, Sigel’s father experienced anti-Semitism in his business dealings. It still exists, Sigel maintains, but it’s more subdued now.
“If pressure is put on through business, you’ll find it occasionally,” he acknowledges. “Once in a while, someone will say, ‘The Jew. The damn Jew.’ But with my father, it was heavily anti-Semitic.”
When Marilyn and David Sigel moved to the 1879 Victorian home on their Homerville farm 48 years ago, many of their neighbors had never met Jews. Sigel insists the couple encountered ignorance, not anti-Semitism.
“We’ve taught our neighbors what Jewish people are,” he says. “We invite them to our holidays. We’ve shown them that we’re honorable people.” For holiday services, the couple drives to Elyria’s Agudath B’nai Israel, the site of son Thomas’s long-ago bar mitzvah.
The Sigels are active in local organizations, like the Rotary Club and the Good Samaritan Board, which provide clothes, food and other necessities for the poor. They quietly contribute to community groups and campaign for local political candidates.
Consequently, the community has embraced them.
“God forbid, if there were ever another persecution, our neighbors would hide us,” Marilyn Sigel says confidently.
Indeed, neighbors rallied around David Sigel in the summer of 2007. “A bull smashed me to pieces,” he says. He spent 30 days in the hospital and several months in rehabilitation recovering from dislocated hips and a broken pelvis and fifth lumbar.
“I had over 200 visitors to the hospital,” relates the father of three and grandfather of three. “Twenty-two churches prayed for me.”
Now back at work, Sigel drives down the narrow rural road that runs through Damar Farm.
“When I drive, I check the cattle for their health,” he says, pulling over and nodding to an Amish woman passing in a horse and buggy. “I look to see that their ears are up and they’re chewing their cud.”
Asked if he ever takes a break, he replies, “I occasionally take a day off, but I’ve still got to feed them on a Sunday!”
At the suggestion of retiring, Sigel throws up his arms and shrugs. “I have no one to give this to,” he says. “If you live on a farm, there’s no way to retire.”
It’s unclear that Sigel would retire even if he could.
“We work hard,” he says, “but we’ve enjoyed it here.”
“Nice heifer,” he says approvingly, singling one out. “Her legs are straight. Her muzzle is wide. She has a lot of conformation (depth). That’s a number-one beautiful heifer there. She’s a beauty.”
Sigel, 76, smiles and turns to a denim-clad employee. “Charles, vaccinate them and put them in Pen One.”
Sigel previously owned these cows but sold them as yearlings to a breeder. When the inseminated heifers neared the end of their nine-month gestation period, Sigel bought them back. “Now they will birth and give lots of milk,” he explains in his folksy drawl as his 10-year-old Australian Blue Shepherd, Zachary, follows him.
Sigel’s Damar Farm, named after himself and his wife Marilyn, 71, is Ohio’s last Jewish-owned cattle farm. At 200 acres, it is also considerably more modest than the 337-acre average of Ohio’s 75,000 farms, according to 2007 reports from the USDA’s National Agricultural Statistics Service.
“We don’t need more than that,” Sigel says of the acreage.
Located in tiny Homerville, a rural village in the heart of Medina County’s Amish country, the farm moves about 10,000 head of cattle annually. About half are dairy heifers that Sigel feeds, handles and supplies to domestic and international dairies. (No milking is done at Damar.) Damar also owns beef cattle, raises corn for the silo, and owns bulls across the country.
“On average, a good-quality heifer sells for $2,200-$2,500,” Sigel says as the new arrivals are led to their pens.
Cattle farming is a mercantile business that rises and falls with the economy, so Sigel is experiencing the same hardships as other business owners today. Business has declined 20% in recent months, he says, largely because cash flow is limited and banks are making it difficult to borrow money.
This morning, Sigel searches his mail in vain for payment from a dairy in Saudi Arabia; it cost the farmer $2,000 to ship each animal to the Middle East, and he’s depending on the income the cattle generate. In the past, he’s dealt with Japanese and Korean dairies. Most of his current business is with Dutch-owned dairies in western Ohio and Indiana, as well as with milk-producers in New Mexico and Texas.
“There’s a computer, but I don’t use it. I do business the old-fashioned way.”
David Sigel
Sigel’s son Thomas, a publisher with no interest in farming, marvels that his dad “has conducted business globally over the years in his modest office attached to the barn. The most modern piece of technology he uses is a fax machine.”David Sigel
“There’s a computer, but I don’t use it,” Sigel says dismissively. “My wife uses it. I do business the old-fashioned way.”
Marilyn Sigel serves as vice president of Damar Farm. “That entails paying bills, answering clients’ calls and questions, keeping them abreast of the market, and giving general input,” she explains.
Running the farm is “a lot of stress,” acknowledges Sigel, a Korean War veteran and Ohio State University graduate who began his day at 6:30 a.m., despite returning from a cattle sale at 11:30 the previous evening. “We handle a lot of money, and our (profit) margins are narrow.”
For example, slaughter cows bring in a mere 2% profit per head; profit on dairy cows starts at $25 per head.
Sigel’s business expenses include fuel, veterinary services, feed corn and hay, as well as wages for two full-time farm hands, three semi drivers, and casual Amish labor. Still, Sigel maintains, “I’m a successful businessman who handles cattle.”
So what’s a nice Jewish man doing in the bovine business, living 40-50 miles away from the nearest pocket of other Jews? These include his siblings Norm Sigel and Sara Braham of Shaker Heights.
“I come from a long line of cattlemen,” boasts Sigel, who says the only other Jewish-American cattleman he’s aware of lives in Lubbock, Texas. “My dad (Max Sigel) was in the business for 50 years.”
Max Sigel left what is now Lithuania, where his family eked out a living buying and selling cattle, to escape being sent to Siberia by the Russian Army. After stops in London and South Africa, where he continued to deal with cattle but was uncomfortable with the persecution of black people, he eventually made his way to Elyria.
“My dad asked for directions to a Jewish farmer,” Sigel explains, and he was introduced to the Lesnick family. He procured work in Elyria, married the Lesnicks’ daughter Ruth, and continued his family’s cattle tradition.
Along the way, Sigel’s father experienced anti-Semitism in his business dealings. It still exists, Sigel maintains, but it’s more subdued now.
“If pressure is put on through business, you’ll find it occasionally,” he acknowledges. “Once in a while, someone will say, ‘The Jew. The damn Jew.’ But with my father, it was heavily anti-Semitic.”
When Marilyn and David Sigel moved to the 1879 Victorian home on their Homerville farm 48 years ago, many of their neighbors had never met Jews. Sigel insists the couple encountered ignorance, not anti-Semitism.
“We’ve taught our neighbors what Jewish people are,” he says. “We invite them to our holidays. We’ve shown them that we’re honorable people.” For holiday services, the couple drives to Elyria’s Agudath B’nai Israel, the site of son Thomas’s long-ago bar mitzvah.
The Sigels are active in local organizations, like the Rotary Club and the Good Samaritan Board, which provide clothes, food and other necessities for the poor. They quietly contribute to community groups and campaign for local political candidates.
Consequently, the community has embraced them.
“God forbid, if there were ever another persecution, our neighbors would hide us,” Marilyn Sigel says confidently.
Indeed, neighbors rallied around David Sigel in the summer of 2007. “A bull smashed me to pieces,” he says. He spent 30 days in the hospital and several months in rehabilitation recovering from dislocated hips and a broken pelvis and fifth lumbar.
“I had over 200 visitors to the hospital,” relates the father of three and grandfather of three. “Twenty-two churches prayed for me.”
Now back at work, Sigel drives down the narrow rural road that runs through Damar Farm.
“When I drive, I check the cattle for their health,” he says, pulling over and nodding to an Amish woman passing in a horse and buggy. “I look to see that their ears are up and they’re chewing their cud.”
Asked if he ever takes a break, he replies, “I occasionally take a day off, but I’ve still got to feed them on a Sunday!”
At the suggestion of retiring, Sigel throws up his arms and shrugs. “I have no one to give this to,” he says. “If you live on a farm, there’s no way to retire.”
It’s unclear that Sigel would retire even if he could.
“We work hard,” he says, “but we’ve enjoyed it here.”
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Tom wilson wrote on Dec 30, 2008 12:42 PM: