Shaʿare Mizraḥ/Las Puertas de Oriente (The Gates of the Orient) was the first Ladino newspaper  in the Ottoman Empire. It was published in Izmir from 1845 to 1846 by Rafael Uziel ‎(1816-1881)‎, a local merchant of Italian descent.   His first attempt at founding a Ladino periodical failed: La Buena Esperansa  expected to appear in Izmir in 1842, never saw light. According to Uziel, Sha’arei Mizrah had a circulation of one hundred copies. In addition to Izmir, this bi-weekly was distributed in other cities, and its subscritption was advertised in The Jewish Chronicle of London. The paper …