9. Who is Rabbi Reuven Glucksman?
I would normally never have said anything regarding Rabbi Glucksman, but now that he has joined this band of Ger I am compelled to share with you why he was fired from Noahide Nations. Rabbi Glucksman taught our Noahide Laws & Life Cycle Course for Class 6 and part of Class 7. He works at Talmudic University of Florida and because I wanted him to feel welcomed my wife and I went down to Miami to visit the University. Though Rabbi Glucksman took our course under Rabbi Bloomenstiel I had never met him personally and I really wanted to. I was fortunate to speak with the Rosh Yeshiva and even sat in on one of the classes. I had assumed, wrongly, that he would have teaching experience but the early weeks of Class 6 I started getting phone calls and emails from students who complained abut his teaching. I just figured that they didn't care for his teaching style. Everyone teaches differently so I told them that they would just need to get used to it if they wanted to get the necessary information and not to let his teaching style prevent them from doing so. However, shortly after Class 7 started I started getting the same calls and emails but from a different set of students. In fact Dennis Humphreys complained the loudest. Dennis was so bad that other students complained about Dennis' total disruption of the class. I find it ironic that Dennis now made Rabbi Glucksman the teacher of the same course on their Ger teaching site.
At this point I now had to investigate what everyone was talking about. I watched some of the video recording's of his class and realized that he was simply reading the text from each lesson, just like a kindergarten teacher does in her class. That wasn't even the worst of it. Upon further investigation I learned that all of his classes during Class #7 only averaged 29 minutes each and found other classes that were 15 and 17 minutes long. During Rabbi Bloomenstiel's 5 years of teaching he never had a class that was less than an hour long. The majority were over an hour long. Rabbi Glucksman knew this because he took the course.
Rabbi Glucksman wanted me to pay him $100 per 1 hour class. After a bit of negotiating we settled on $75.00 an hour. You don't have to be a rocket scientist to calculate that at $75 for a 15 minute class, he was being paid $300 an hour. So, not only was he stealing from Noahide Nations and HaShem he was also stealing from the students who had paid for the course. All while teaching Torah. I was absolutely appalled when I learned this and quite frankly got angry at him for having treated all of us so poorly. Especially when he is representing Talmudic University and teaching Torah, while violating the Torah. Unfortunately, I got so angry that I fired him that day. Noahide Nations is not here to be used as a door mat by Gentiles or Jews.
Here is the letter I wrote to Rabbi Glucksman:
This was his email response:
If that is how you feel i understand.
Rabbi Glucksman,
I must admit that I am a little surprised with your response. I know you were new to teaching the material for the class but you sat in on 60 classes taught by Rabbi Bloomenstiel. To think that you gained nothing from that seems very unlikely to me. Certainly, having sat in that many classes you would have gained tremendous insight as to how the class was taught and the material presented. I know that there was never a class that you sat in on that was a half hour or less and I can guarantee there were none that were 17 minutes. As far as guidance, Rabbi Bloomenstiel was as close as a phone call, plus you work at Talmudic University where I'm sure there are instructors who could have helped. Apparently, you didn't think to ask them.
In terms of feedback on the classes; that feedback should have been very obvious when students started dropping out of your classes. If you had noticed that, you could have called me and I could have looked into things much sooner.
You mention that you are "very open" to working on things. I disagree with this because you were unwilling to create your own presentation slides, you were unwilling to use anything provided by Elisa, you were unwilling to talk with Rabbi Bloomenstiel or any of the Talmudic University's faculty and clearly unwilling to teach an hour long class. This left me with the feeling that you were unwilling to do anything except what you wanted to do. So, I guess we will just have to agree to disagree on this issue.
You have accused me of being unfair to you and to "anyone else", I am assuming you are referring to the students. Here again, I will disagree with this statement. Maybe you can share with me how I and Noahide Nations were unfair when we paid you $75 to teach a one hour class but you only taught an average of 29 minutes? How was I unfair to the students when you were the one who only taught for 1/2 hour and wouldn't answer the majority of their questions? How is it fair that you taught an entire lesson in 17 minutes but expected and was paid the $75 for a full hour? How is it fair that you would teach students an entire lesson in 17 minutes? How is it fair that you did not teach one class that lasted an hour but were paid the full $75 each time? How is it fair to the students that the majority of what you did during class was read the slides without very much, if any, elaboration beyond the reading? It seems to me that you were unfair with Noahide Nations and the students. You have caused harm to our reputation and that of the scholarship that Rabbi Bloomenstiel and our staff put into this fabulous course. To say that I am offended by your accusation of unfairness would be a significant understatement.
Finally, regarding the relationship with Tamudic University and Noahide Nations, the expectations I had were the ones that were presented to me during the meeting. The fact that you are unable to remember them does not change the fact that they were made. However, I do not have the time to go into them right now and there would be nothing to gain from it anyway.
Believe me when I say I am sorry that it has come to this but I cannot justify continuing the course under these circumstances.
I hope this has clarified matters resulting in the final decision that has been made.
All the best,
Ray
