Ever since the publication of Steven Aschheim’s seminal work on German and German Jewish imagination of the Ostjude,  the identifications of Eastern European, Jewish migrants residing in modern metropolises have been scholarly accepted to be more complex than the orthodox, poor, and culturally separate imaginary figure. But what social dynamics were in function during the everyday relations between established Jews and migrant Jews from Eastern Europe? Ann-Christin Saß has examined transmigrant spaces in 20th century’s Berlin,  but what about those who decided to stay in European cities? What strategies did they use to function within, and integrate into, both the urban topography and existent Jewish communities? 
Using the Jewish community in Stockholm as a case study, this paper explores the spatial agency wielded by Swedish Ostjuden. Investigating the spaces constructed, used and imagined by Jews from Eastern Europe, it becomes evident that they never existed as a unified group, and instead related to spaces and places according to a dynamic inner-communal hierarchy based on a variety of identifications. The paper is based on parts of the author’s doctoral dissertation Between Marginality and Multiplicity: Mapping Jewish Public Home-Making in Modern Stockholm at University of Southampton (2019), which studies Jewish/non-Jewish, inner-communal and individual relationships with Jewish topography in the capital of Stockholm between emancipation in 1870 and 1939. In an effort to contextualise the dissertation’s methodology, this paper focuses on how digital analysis of residential settlements with the geographical software tool GIS (Geographic Information Systems) can form an important section on deep mapping-studies: the relational and topographically vertical aspects of human engagement with space.  
The use of GIS to map urban populations has increased in popularity in the last decades. In the nexus of Digital Humanities and Jewish Studies, online mapping facilities within both academic and popular projects on Jewish heritage and history have been launched,  some reaching ground-breaking results.  While this GIS-study on the Jewish population in Stockholm reveals the relationship between Jewish individuals and the city’s topography, it furthermore produces a new framework for how to understand Swedish inner-communal relationships in modern times, particularly the individuals associated with Orthodox Judaism and Eastern Europe. With the large lack of written accounts produced by people from the lower classes, microdata and GIS presents an opportunity for an examination that goes beyond imaginary figures produced by the Jewish bourgeoisie. 
The Jewish population in Stockholm was not bigger than 900 individuals as social and legal emancipation was granted in Sweden in 1870. As descendants from mainly Germany and Denmark had settled into Sweden since the 1770s, Stockholm boasting with the biggest Jewish population, migrants and trans-migrants from Eastern Europe started to arrive in the 1850s. Amidst antisemitic-influenced legal complications and press publications, as well as a capital transitioning into an industrial society, the Jewish population in Stockholm subsequently grew to approximately 5,000 in 1935, constituting less than one per cent of the total – overwhelmingly Protestant – urban population. 
The paper will address the use of GIS to identify and investigate the identifications and spatial strategy of Eastern European and/or orthodox Jews by comparing five different mappings from Jewish residences in the 1930s. Following a brief discussion on methodological challenges – cross-referencing sources, manual capture of information, computational literacy, potential level of inaccuracy, and identity definitions – the presentation will dive into the analytical examples. The first two maps portray the roles of class and social status in residential strategies, showing how Jewish emphasis on spatial integration with urban topography trumped ethnic clusters. The third map demonstrates the spatial similarities between residential patterns among members of the Jewish community and one of the more established orthodox schuls Adat Jisrael. The two last maps problematise a quick conclusion on non-existent differences between liberal and orthodox Jews: they display firstly, the different social identifications between Adat Jisrael and supporters of an orthodox melamed, and secondly, the pivotal role of shared ethnic backgrounds in residential patterns. The narrative that emerges from the GIS-analysis underlines the social fragmentation among orthodox Jews, the alignment between some orthodox Jews and liberal Jews, as well as the spatial connectedness among Eastern European Jews. 
Reframing the scholarly framework on the so-called Ostjuden, the paper lastly presents how the dissertation’s interdisciplinary, deep mapping-approach digs deeper into the Jewish relationship with Stockholm’s topography. Combining GIS-analysis with qualitative research on communal and individual discussions on, and imaginations and use of, urban spaces, the inner-communal and societal hierarchy defining all, but particularly orthodox, places emerges. As an intrinsic part of any deep mapping-study aiming to understand the relational and topographical influences on Jewish spaces, GIS has potential to produce new frameworks for research on Jewish identifications, community relations, and the dynamics in between.

Reframing Swedish Ostjuden: Deep Mapping, GIS, and Urban Space

The international conference #DHJewish - Jewish Studies in the Digital Age will bring together more than 60 scholars and heritage practitioners to discuss how the digital turn affects the field of Jewish Studies. The conference is organised by the [Luxembourg Centre for Contemporary and Digital History (C²DH).](https://www.c2dh.uni.lu/) 

[For more information, and a PDF download of the program, please see also here.](https://www.c2dh.uni.lu/events/dhjewish-jewish-studies-digital-age) 



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