A knish /kəˈnɪʃ/ or /knɪʃ/ is a traditional Ashkenazi Jewish[1] snack food consisting of a filling covered with dough that is typically baked or sometimes deep fried.

Knishes are often purchased from street vendors in urban areas with a large Jewish population, sometimes at a hot dog stand, or from a butcher shop.

In Ukraine, the knysz evolved into a filled yeasted bun, and today is usually sweet rather than savoury; the Russian cousin to the Jewish knish is the pirozhok (пирожки́).

Knishes began to be baked (rather than fried) around the same time that the potato was popularized in Eastern Europe, and the dough wrapper gradually became more like pastry than bread.

The trend declined after suburbanization and the policies of Ed Koch and Rudy Giuliani that restricted the sale of knishes from food carts.