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It may have taken a new, potentially bogus charge that a senior U.S. official gave Israel classified data to produce the unthinkable.

But finally, Orthodox and Reform leaders agreed on something.

Rabbi Eric Yoffie, president of the Reform movement's Union of American Hebrew Congregations and Rabbi Raphael B. Butler, executive vice president of the Orthodox Union, penned a joint letter to President Bill Clinton urging him to free Jonathan Pollard.

Clinton has already rejected two previous appeals to free Pollard, a former Navy analyst serving a life term for his 1987 conviction of passing classified data to Israel.

Still, Butler and Yoffie sent Clinton a new appeal, asking the president to commute Pollard's sentence.

While acknowledging Pollard's guilt, the rabbis said his life term — the early part of which was spent in solitary — is "grossly disproportionate to his crime.

"We feel it is wrong for American justice to treat Jonathan Pollard, a contrite offender, as you would those who have committed high treason against our nation."

We agree, and also urge Clinton to consider that Pollard is being handled as if he spied for an enemy — but in fact passed data that is arguably not harmful to U.S. interests to one of America's best friends.

While we wholeheartedly back the latest appeal for Pollard, and welcome any sign of cooperation between Jewish movements typically at odds, we cannot help but wonder about the letter's timing.

It came the week after the Washington Post, quoting unnamed sources, reported that a top U.S. official was acting as a mole for Israel — a story Israel vigorously denied and that no other paper, nor the Post itself, has amplified.

The rabbis say they had long been planning the Clinton letter, but still we wonder whether it came at the best time. Can the president consider such a request without concern for political fallout amid hints of a new spy scandal? Hopefully, he will. Realistically, we doubt it.