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Here in Israel, where I spend about half my time split between Tel Aviv and Silicon Valley, it's called not by the Hebrew term for "smoked salmon" but by the Yi

Here in Israel, where I spend about half my time split between Tel Aviv and Silicon Valley, it's called not by the Hebrew term for "smoked salmon" but by the Yiddish word "לאָקס" (spelled as לוקס in Hebrew) I was born in Brooklyn, to a Yiddish speaking family. Occasionally I use a Yiddish word in Israel and I'm met by a blank stare. 60% of the Jewish population here came from countries like Syria, Egypt, Iraq, Yemen, etc, where nobody knew Yiddish.

simonh 7y ago
Could you give a phonetic representation of that, for non-Yiddish speakers? Thanks.
- throwaway_vnkqd 7y ago
  In Yiddish it would be something like "lux" as in "deluxe" or "bucks". In contemporary Israeli Hebrew, that vowel doesn't exist so it would be pronounced somewhere between the "ucks" in "bucks" and the "olks" in "yolks" or "folks".
- js2 7y ago
  Both words are spellings of "lox." Also, lox isn't smoked, it's salt cured. Cold smoked salmon is usually called nova.