Yeshivaworld recently ran a story (HERE) regarding neighbor complaints against the Yeshiva in Belmar, NJ. The following, is the Asbury Park Press’s  follow-up article – which was printed today: Are there undercurrents of discrimination permeating through a public debate over whether students at an Orthodox Jewish boarding school are clean enough? Too loud? Or whether the yeshiva even belongs in town?

Or is religion irrelevant? Is it just about the quality of life in Belmar?

Councilman Matthew J. Doherty, a Democrat, spent the past several days going door to door in the neighborhood around Mesivta Keser Torah School on 11th Avenue. Doherty said he knocked on 101 doors and spoke to residents representing 53 households.

“Thirty-seven stated they had no issues with the yeshiva and its students, 16 households stated that noise and/or litter was a public nuisance. Zero households stated they have ever seen rats or rodents in the neighborhood because of the yeshiva and its students,” Doherty said.

The rat issue was one Victoria Renner, a florist who lives onD Street, and a Republican candidate for Borough Council, raised at the last council meeting when she said that rodents had resulted from poor sanitary conditions associated with the yeshiva’s operation, among other complaints.

Several students interviewed have said they believe Renner’s complaints are rooted in discriminatory stereotypes and that they are being singled out from other young people who live in the neighborhood.

“Ms. Renner’s assertion that there are rats or rodents in the neighborhood because of the yeshiva and its students are completely false,” Doherty said. “None of her neighbors, nor Ms. Renner, ever saw a rat, and the Monmouth County Health Department never found evidence of one on repeated inspections.”

Renner herself did not attend Wednesday night’s meeting.

Mayor Kenneth E. Pringle said that he and Police Chief Jack Hill met with a rabbi from the school. Pringle said he plans to meet with older students who serve in supervisory roles to open lines of communication with the student body.

Pringle said there have been reports of roughhousing, parking issues, littering issues and late night basketball games — at St. Rose High School, a Catholic school on the opposite end of town, also in a residential neighborhood, though no one has come before the council to complain.