This article explains why I never heard about rebirth at IMC. It’s also really mind blowing that a Buddhist scholar would have doubts that the Buddha really talked about rebirth. I’m just 
He also seems to conflate that if it’s possible to learn techniques that reduce suffering without belief in rebirth then he has no reason to believe. Which maybe is the way to get started on the path for many in the west but surprising for a decades long teacher.
Maybe a scholar could comment whether there’s any validity to the scholarly elements of this skepticism?
EDIT: interview with Bhikkhu Bodhi specifically speaking about secular Buddhism’s omission of rebirth Interview with Bhikkhu Bodhi
Quoting Bhikkhu Bodhi:
I take the ideas of kamma and rebirth to be quite central to the Buddha’s world-view. The way I see the Dhamma itself, in the classical formulation, entirely rests upon the teachings of kamma and rebirth. You can extract aspects of the Dhamma, and looking at it from a particular perspective see it as applicable to this life here and now, the way the secular Buddhists have been doing. But if one wants to get what I would call the full perspective of the Dhamma, then I would say the teachings of kamma and rebirth have a very central, critical place. If one pulls away the teachings of kamma and rebirth, then the teaching of the Dhamma, in its classical formulation, almost collapses, I would say. Basically, you’re left with a rather sophisticated ancient form of – I wouldn’t use the expression psychotherapy – but a kind of psychological adjustment, or a way of dealing with the here and now.