(By Our Berlin Correspondent)
The recent death of Dr. James Israel, one of Germany’s greatest surgeons and diagnosticians, who was called to the sick bed of kings and rulers in several countries, is being mourned by German Jewry.
James Israel was born in Berlin on February, 1848. He had his early schooling here at the Friedrich-Wilhelm-Gymnasium and then at the Berlin University where he studied medicine from 1865 to 1870. He participated in the war of 1870-1 as army physician. From 1872 to 1874 he served as assistant to Dr. Bernhard v. Langenbeck at the Jewish Hospital in Berlin. In 1890, upon the retirement of Dr. Langenbeck, Dr. Israel assumed charge of the Jewish Hospital in which post he served until 1917.
Dr. Israel was endowed with a remarkable personality, not only of spirit but of physique as well. His tall, graceful figure, his long, gray beard and his aristocratic bearing aroused attention and respect wherever he appeared, at scientific conferences, on public occasions or on the street. Dr. M. Katzenstein, writing about Dr. Israel in the “Central Verein Zeitung,” remarks: “This remarkable external appearance bespoke also the greatness of his spirit. He was of a distinct aristocratic mould. Whatever savored of the parvenu was repulsive to him.”
Dr. Israel was a dignified Jew, feeling bound to the cultural and traditional greatness of the Jewish race, though he was not a Jewish nationalist. In matters political he regarded himself as primarily a German. But that he sympathized with the movement for Jewish cultural renaissance, not only in the diaspora but in Palestine as well, is evidenced by the practical support he gave during the last year of his life to the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, regarding it as the future center of Jewish culture.
Dr. Israel was a born teacher. In his work as hospital doctor he inspired countless students and many physicians who accompanied him on his visits to the patients and listened with the keenest interest to his diagnosis of each case. But despite this he spent his whole life under the restriction which was placed in Germany of the Kaisers on the Jews, Being a Jew he was never appointed professor at a university and thus could never fulfil his desire to be a teacher of academic youth. It was also due to the fact of his Jewish origin that he was never elected to the presidency of the “German Society of Surgeons,” although by his professional preeminence, his impressive personality and his masterful logic, he was the natural leader of scientific congresses. His greatness in this respect was demonstrated in 1911 when he delivered a remarkable address at the Paris meeting of the International Neurological Society,” where he was chosen vice-president and again in 1914 at the meeting of the same Society which took place in the Prussian Congress building where he was elected president.
Like all other eminent German Jews Dr. Israel was not given an opportunity to display his full abilities in his own country. But his greatness was understood and appreciated abroad. No greater tribute to his genius as a diagnostician and surgeon could be given him than the invitations he received on a number of accasions from abroad to diagnose and operate on members of royal families.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
