" 
 :Yeah, I came onto this discussion page to see how the knish-o-centric-ness of the phrase ""Many cultures have variations"" was addressed.  As far as I know, EVERY culture in the world has a meat-stuffed-in-dough dish, and to call those ""variations"" of a knish is laughable.  An eggroll is not a knish, nor is a calzone.  Both are far older than the knish historically.  We just need to rewrite that whole paragraph to identify that a knish is a trivially minor and regional variation of a universal dish, not the other way around.  And, for that matter, being from a highly Jewish part of San Francisco and having never seen a knish at a deli, it should be rephrased that it is not ""found in urban areas with highly jewish populations"" to ""found in some Jewish parts of New York.""  End of day, I've had far more piroshkis and bagel dogs than knishes.    "