On Apple Silicon/ARM Macs jEdit can't open because of the architecture mismatch between the Java application stub architecture and the architecture of the Java build. To use it, one has to go to a few extra steps that aren't at all obvious to the end user.

Following the instructions here https://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/426713/how-to-help-the-jedit-application-find-java one must download a new Java stub and place it in the jEdit bundle then edit Info.plist to match the installed version of Java and only then can jEdit run.