CLEVELAND, Ohio — The massive Boeing 787-10 Dreamliner that landed unexpectedly at Cleveland Hopkins airport this week was impossible for Dan Eleff to ignore.

First, it’s not an airplane that normally flies to Cleveland. Second, it was filled with travelers from Israel, many of whom, Eleff speculated, keep kosher and might get hungry if their unplanned layover in Cleveland dragged on into the night.

So Eleff, of Beachwood, an ordained rabbi who runs the travel website DansDeals.com, sprung to action, buying food for the travelers and then delivering it to the airport.

If that sounds easy, it wasn’t.

Try showing up at the airport late at night, with a half-dozen boxes of food, and talking TSA into letting it all through security.

But let’s start at the beginning: The 274-passenger plane, United flight 85, was en route from Tel Aviv to Newark on Wednesday when it was diverted to Cleveland Hopkins because of weather-related problems in the New York City area. It landed in Cleveland at 6:10 p.m. and was initially scheduled to be on the ground for just over an hour.

It ended up staying in Cleveland for almost eight hours.

Eleff started monitoring the plane shortly after it touched down. His website has a strong following from what Eleff calls the “religious Jewish market,” so he figured he might know someone on the flight. He messaged his 95,000 followers on Twitter, asking for updated information about the flight and whether anyone was hungry. He heard back from several.

Eventually, when it was clear the plane wasn’t going to take off for a while, United let the passengers deboard and bought pizza for the group.

Eleff, however, was concerned about the plane’s several dozen passengers who keep kosher (that is, according to Judaism’s dietary laws). He feared many of them wouldn’t have anything to eat. So he decided to help.

It was getting late, and the kosher pizza shops on the East Side had already closed. So he drove to Trader Joe’s, loaded up on kosher snacks, called his friend, Dr. Shmulie Margolin, who picked up more food, and they headed to Hopkins.

“We got to the airport at 9:55,” said Eleff, -- five minutes before TSA was shutting its security checkpoints for the evening.

Eleff went to the United Airlines counter and asked for a gate pass, which would allow him to go through security without a plane ticket and deliver the food. “I was told it was against their policy to issue a gate pass,” said Eleff. “It was very frustrating that I had all this food and couldn’t get it to the passengers.”

A spokeswoman for United said that gate passes are issued only for non-passengers who are assisting travelers, including unaccompanied minors, travelers with disabilities and others.

The passengers, meanwhile, were told not to leave the secure side of the airport because TSA was shutting down and they might not be able to return to the gate.

One passenger, 21-year-old Estie Kupfer, left anyway. Kupfer, who lives in New Jersey, grew up in Cleveland Heights, and during the delay arranged to meet her father and stepmother for a brief visit in the terminal.

Eleff connected with Kupfer and asked her to take the food back to her fellow passengers. TSA allowed her to escort all the food through the security checkpoint.

She said her fellow passengers were grateful for Eleff’s actions. “I was proud to be a Clevelander,” she said. “New Yorkers don’t even know there’s a Jewish community in Cleveland, they think Cleveland is a hick town. But they were very impressed.”

Kosher food travels through TSA at Cleveland Hopkins International Airport. The food was headed for passengers aboard a United flight from Tel Aviv, diverted from Newark because of bad weather. (Photo courtesy DansDeals.com)

Wrote one passenger on Facebook: “We sat on the plane on the tarmac for over two hours. Finally the plane taxied to the gate and we made it through a very long, slow security line. As we came out, there were boxes upon boxes of pizza waiting for everyone. Well, very nice, but we couldn’t eat it. Several minutes later I see a few obviously Orthodox men carrying boxes of food, plates and utensils. A group of about 15 kosher-keeping Jews were very happy. Jews take care of each other and it’s awesome!”

The plane finally left Cleveland at 2:11 a.m., arriving in Newark at 3:58 a.m., nearly 11 hours after originally scheduled. United had to bring in a new crew to fly the plane, according to Eleff.

“I’m still in shock that United was so indifferent,” said Eleff. “But all’s well that ends well. They made it home and no one was hungry.”

As for why he did it? Eleff, a father of three, said the answer is simple: “This is a community of a hundred thousand Jews. We should be able to help a flight with dozens of kosher-keeping passengers.”

He added, “If I was on a diverted flight, I hope someone would do the same for me.”

Read Eleff’s story about the experience here.