Something New in Old Vienna: A Woman at the Reins

--For the first time since horse-drawn carriages started carrying visitors around imperial Vienna 300 years ago, a woman is at the reins. Elisabeth (Sissy) Ringl, 24, has joined the other carriage drivers, or fiakers , waiting for tourists outside St. Stephen’s Cathedral, a city landmark. “I wanted to begin driving when I was 18 years old, but my father would not let me because of the men,” she said. “But I have been riding horses since childhood.” Ringl, who sold sporting goods for seven years, said her new job was fun, but added: “Some of the drivers did not want me and won’t greet me, but I get along with the younger ones.” Although the males have mixed feelings about a woman driver, they acknowledge that she is capable. “She grew up with horses,” one fiaker said. “She does the job with joy, which is important in this profession.”

--A group of rabbis is putting God in comic books, in an attempt to reach young Jews who don’t go to synagogue. “We’re mixing worldly humor with Torah education,” said Rabbi Raphael Tennenhaus of Hallandale, Fla. “Our philosophy is that God is everywhere, and now he’s in a comic book.” “Mendy and Golem” comics are filled with lessons from the Torah--and puns. In one episode, Sholem the Golem (named for animated clay statues said to have guarded Jewish communities in the 16th Century) fight an evil robot named Oy Vader in Yankel Stadium. The series starts with Mendel (Mendy) Klein, a rabbi’s son, finding Sholem in a storage room at his synagogue. Between adventures, Sholem sleeps in Mendy’s garage, and springs to action when he hears the magic words, “Let us do a mitzvah!”

--Taking a lesson from kangaroos, a hospital put an infant born 12 weeks prematurely in a pouch that a doctor says is “as close as you can come to putting the baby back in the womb.” During the baby’s 10-day stay, nurses and the child’s mother, Louisa Jones of Albion, Mich., took turns wearing a specially designed apron that allowed them to carry the baby, Ciji Jones, close to their abdomens. “It’s kind of like an external pregnancy,” nurse Fran Mowrer said. “In an (incubator) a baby doesn’t get a lot of handling. The pouch allows for some late bonding.”