["When all of you will be forgotten, the name Israel will still be shining" : James Israel (1848-1926): a career in the German Empire and his nomination for the Nobel Prize].

In 1902, the Berlin Jewish urologist James Israel was nominated for the Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine. Taking scholar, social, and political aspects into consideration, this biographical essay traces how James Israel gained a sound scientific reputation especially in kidney surgery within Imperial Germany and its antisemitic attitude and how he promoted urology to become a specialty in its own right.