I'm converting from LaTeX to MS Word (.docx).  LaTeX lets you embed the command

\mbox{...}

in LaTeX math mode.  What goes inside the mbox is normal, non-math-mode text and commands.  In my case, I have some special terms that I use outside of mathmode, which are italicized, e.g. like

\textit{foo}

I need to embed exactly the same text, formatted in the same way, in math mode.  For example, in LaTeX, this is fine:

$2 \times \mbox{\textit{foo}}$

However, when using pandoc to convert to Word, I get this error: