R Leiman's visit to Skokie

Went to listen to R Shnayer Leiman speak about the Golem and the Maharal. He is a very entertaining speaker. In the process of giving his talk he told a funny story:

In New York, almost a century ago, there were a slew of Yiddish newspapers. If a deadline was coming up and they were short on stories, a typical trick would be to go see Rabbi Gavriel Margolis, known as Reb Velvel. If the reporter was canny enough to push the right button, he would be guaranteed to come back with a good story.

On one such day, when news were hard to come by, such a reporter went over to see Reb Velvel and posed the following question - "What do you think of Rabbi Yoffe?". Rabbi Yoffe was one of the founding members of the Agudas Harabonim, an organization which Reb Velvel was fervently in disagreement with. Reb Velvel thought about it for a few seconds and replied:

Emes, ve-yatziv, ve-nachon, ve-kayam, ve-yashar, ve-ne'eman, ve-ahoov, ve-chaviv, ve-nechmad, ve-na'im, ve-noroh, ve-adir, u-mesukan, u-mekubal, ve-tov, ve-yoffe... (*)

See how far Yoffe is from Emes?

One thing about this story, is I could not find who Rabbi Yoffe was. This is porbably a question for Mississippi Fred.

* The text of a blessing following the Shema.