Rabbi Buttenwieser's letter is a reply to a postcard. First he answers several questions: he confirms to visit somebody if she should come to Basel, he has no use of a Shochet, and has also not found any other place which could use one. (Cooked) vegetables in cans (such as peas, asparagus, beans, carrots, mushrooms, truffles) are not considered kosher. The main part of the letter is a plea to help a Rabbi Wolf Kohn from Czarna, who had stayed at Rabbi Buttenwieser's house on Shabbat and whom he had previously met at the Yeshiva in Pressburg. He asks for support for him and his large family. One of his daughter's recently married, and he is in financial difficulties.

Joseph Aryeh Buttenwieser was a rabbi in Strassburg between 1888 and 1921 and later rabbi in Mannheim. He was born in Reichenberg, Bavaria, and died 1927 in Mannheim. He studied in Wuerzburg and Pressburg.