Staff Writer

In 140 or fewer characters, Lisa Kaneff can easily tell you why she felt disconnected from the Greater Washington Jewish community: "I couldn't find my niche. No one was quite as Trendy/Geeky/Social/Goofy and Jewish as I was."

Writing via e-mail in the breezy style of Twitter -- the social networking Web site that requires users to post messages using no more than 140 characters -- Kaneff utilized her penchant for pith to join a budding online community of alienated Jews.

After hopping about for more than a year to various Jewish events around the D.C. area in hopes of erasing her religious isolation, Kaneff says that she's finally found her "kind of people" on Twitter, and she's hardly alone in that pursuit.

"It's not just networking at a bar," the 27-year-old said in an interview. "I don't want to do Jewish, I want to be Jewish, and I think that's a huge [difference] between these [Jewish] activity groups and what I've now found as part of my Twitter community."

Disaffected Jews throughout Maryland, D.C. and Virginia have echoed Kaneff, saying that Twitter's vibrant social universe has unlocked an alternative, yet in-depth Jewish experience both locally and abroad. The movement even spawned the recent D.C. Jewish Community Tweetup, a social gathering that drew some 20 of the area's Jewish tweeters.

"It's a lot easier [on Twitter] to get into very complicated subject matter right away," said Bethesda resident Vicki Boykis, who helped plan the Tweetup along with Kaneff. "It's a one-on-one conversation and people indicate specifically their interests" so there is no awkward banter, and no one scoffs when Boykis writes about "the economy, being Russian and Jewish -- these subjects aren't out of context."

For Kaneff, whose existential journey from detachment to involvement began more than four years ago when she returned to Rockville, where she had grown up, after a professional stint in Seattle, Twitter "replaces the feeling of emptiness, of being physically disconnected from the Jewish community."

Eager to re-engage with the Judaism of her childhood -- which included regular youth group events and services at the Reform Temple Beth Ami in Rockville -- Kaneff rejoined the shul, only to find that "it's hard to feel connected to people my parents' age."

Rather, the self-described "wandering Jew" decided to get involved with several of the area's young professional groups, including EntryPointDC/GesherCity, a Jewish social group that targets people from 21 to 35, and Washington Hebrew's 2239, a group for 22- to 39-year-olds.

Initially hoping to find like-minded Jews, Kaneff instead became jaded.

"The social outings [the groups] went on weren't of my interest," Kaneff recalled. "They were just kind of stuffy [and] slightly insular -- they had their group and their lives and weren't as welcoming" as they might have been.

"I don't want to talk about [people's] jobs," Kaneff added. "I want to talk about things that are happening in the world. ... I don't want a meat market [or] a drinking group. If I'm going to connect with someone Jewish, there has to be some sort of context."

Boykis, too, found Greater D.C.'s Jewish young professional scene lacking.

After moving to Alexandria about a year ago, the 22-year-old determined that Jewish young professional events were "a little bit cliquish" and made her feel "very out of place." Even after moving to Bethesda following her wedding a few months back, Boykis says she still felt neglected by local Jewish groups.

Both women took to cyberspace to satisfy their Jewish yearning.

For Kaneff, the switch to Twitter came after moving to Fairfax, where she felt even more secluded from the Jewish community. Having used the Web site for her job as a marketing consultant, Kaneff began to investigate its Jewish users, and began writing about being "a tomboy, politically active, into rock music and football," as well as topical political issues, God and current events in Israel.

"On Passover," she recalled, after imbibing about "five glasses of wine ... I was going through my seder and had all these questions about why God allowed so much suffering to come upon the Jews."

Perplexed, she took to Twitter to pose her question to the world. Several tweets later, Kaneff knew she had found her crowd.

"It's not just a social avenue, it's a religious and educational avenue, one that I've never been exposed to," Kaneff said, explaining that Twitter has introduced her to several locals, including Josh Ford, the chief program officer at the Washington DC Jewish Community Center, and Todd Koren, a 10th-grade teacher in Alexandria who goes by the online moniker "Heebindc." (It also appears to be a matchmaking avenue for Kaneff, who said, "Feel free to mention that I've tried looking for love through Twitter, too!")

Koren, who moved to Virginia about three years ago, also said that "random happy hours" weren't Jewish enough for him. "It's not enough to say, 'We're all Jewish' -- we all have hair, we all have eyes."

Seeking deeper religious conversations, Koren turned to Twitter and found that "even one tweet provides some sort of insight into people" in a way that mundane conversation over a pint of beer doesn't.

For Robin Yasinow, a 42-year-old public relations guru, Twitter has become a sort of de facto synagogue.

After relocating to Kensington with her husband about two years ago, Yasinow was unable to find a local shul that spoke to her communal needs. Then, she dialed into the WDCJCC's Twitter page.

"When I first started seeing someone tweet about the DCJCC, I was like, 'Oh, I want to check that out!' " said Yasinow, who also attended the Tweetup event. Sans a shul, she added, Twitter fulfills "my need to connect with the Jewish community at a time when I'm not ... part of a congregation."

The WDCJCC's Ford said that Twitter is a perfectly natural way for young Jews to find connections.

"There's never going to be a one-size-fits-all Jewish community," Ford said. "To pretend that we can cater to all young adults from one menu is reductive and insulting. ... Part of the reason why WDCJCC is on Twitter is because we want to be part of that conversation; we know we don't reach everybody."

Aaron Keyak, who uses Twitter both personally and for his job as the National Jewish Democratic Council's press secretary, noted that because the site allows users to tailor what they see, as well as their interlocutors, users develop "a deeper connection to what's going on in the Jewish community."

As opposed to Jewish communal events, where "other factors beside your interests dictate who you talk to," the online universe provides a larger window into a narrow world, Keyak said.

One prominent Jewish tweeter, who asked to speak anonymously so as not to offend the Twitter community, warned that the site shouldn't be used in lieu of face-to-face interaction.

"I'm afraid that what happens is that as people tailor their audiences and who they talk to more and more ... they lose a certain perspective," the source said. "Not to mention actually interacting with people on a face-to-face basis."