The following is a report by The Journal News:

RAMAPO – Two controversial yeshiva projects due to be discussed tonight before the Zoning Board of Appeals, were likely to be postponed at the requests of the developers.

Alan Simon, the town’s planning and zoning administrator, denied postponing Mesifta Beth Shraga’s hearing on plans for a yeshiva and dormitory on Camp Hill Road, but the zoning board will ultimately decide if it goes forward.

In a letter to Simon on Monday, Mesifta’s attorney, Ira Emanuel, said he had a scheduling conflict and asked that the public hearing be continued at the next available board meeting.

Then yesterday, Simon received a letter from Gershon Bornfreund of Bobover Yeshiva of Monsey, asking for a postponement of its appearance before the board.

No reason was given in the letter, and a call to the yeshiva was not returned yesterday.

Neighbors of the Bobover property were angered last week when a cow was slaughtered in the yeshiva’s backyard, apparently during a kosher-butchering class unconnected to the yeshiva.

Carol Friedman, who lives across the street from the Bobover property, said it seemed the postponement was intended to defuse neighbors’ opposition.

“They want people to forget,” Friedman said. “They want it to die down. There was going to be a big group there over that (the cow slaughter) as well as for the development plan.”

Bobover wants to build a new school for 250 students on 2 acres after illegally running a school in a single-family house on the Route 306 property.

Simon granted administrative approval of that request, in part because of questions over the status of zoning violations and the fact that it was to be Bobover’s first time on the board’s agenda.

He was not so inclined to support Mesifta’s request because they’ve already been before the board, and it was anticipated that the hearing could conclude tonight.

Jerry Fox, who lives near Mesifta’s property on Camp Hill Road, said he and his neighbors would still come to tonight’s meeting.

“All we’d need is to not show up, and Ira Emanuel shows up,” said Fox, who said a petition opposing zoning variances for the yeshiva had generated 746 signatures.

“It’s a stalling tactic,” Fox said of the requested delay. “They’d like us to just go away. But we’re not going away. This is our home.”

Fox and his neighbors have seen the yeshiva and dormitory as detracting from their single-family residential neighborhood and dwarfing a 17th-century house on the site, once the home of the late actor Burgess Meredith.

(LoHud.com)