We do know is that this story is a Coca-Cola classic. And it’s kosher for Pesach, too!
A leading rabbinic figure in early 20th century America was Rabbi Tuvia (Tobias) Geffen of Atlanta, Georgia. The sandek at his bris in 1870 was Rav Yitzchok Elchanan Spektor. A musmach of the Slabodka yeshivah and the Kovno kollel, young Tuvia possessed a legendary hasmadah. Family lore has it that when Tsar Nicholas II visited Kovno and the entire city gathered on the streets to view the spectacle, Tuvia sat alone in the beis medrash, completely engrossed in his learning.
As violent anti-Semitism reared its ugly head at the turn of the century, Rabbi Geffen and his family joined the mass immigration to the United States. He commenced his rabbinic career on the Lower East Side before moving to Canton, Ohio. He eventually took a position in Atlanta in 1910, where he would spend the next six decades shepherding the burgeoning community, as well as influencing the greater Southeast.