As the war on terror is joined, ordinary people are starting to think more seriously about the consequences of their own actions. This is in the nature of what happened with one of the important local synagogues in New York, Congregation B’nai Jeshurun, whose directors last week decided against hosting a ceremony that was going to honor a supporter of the Palestinian-Arab uprising against Israel. The honor was something called a “risk taker” award, and was going to be presented by Jews for Racial and Economic Justice, a hard-left organization, to Adam Shapiro, who last year had stood with the Palestinian terrorist Yasser Arafat during the blockade set up by the Jewish State around his headquarters.

B’nai Jeshurun and Jews for Racial and Economic Justice parted ways over plans to hold the ceremony in the synagogue after Jacob Gershman’s report on the incipient scandal appeared on Page One of The New York Sun. Indeed, the synagogue will no longer make its facilities available to any outside organization unless the synagogue itself is an official cosponor. JFREJ has sent a letter, reprinted on the page opposite, trying to whitewash for what Mr. Shapiro stands. We think they’re off the point. Millions of New Yorkers remember the spectacle of Mr. Shapiro appearing in the Arafat compound during the showdown last year, when the Palestinian Arabs — sometimes with the acquiescence of, sometimes at the instigation of Mr. Arafat — were sending suicide bombers to target and kill Jewish civilians, including women and children.

It’s not just right-wing Jews who dislike for what Mr. Shapiro stands. It was one of the most liberal Jewish organizations, American Jewish Congress, that first condemned the awards ceremony. Two liberal members of the City Council, Christine Quinn and Gale Brewer, decided, to their credit, not to attend after the nature of the event was exposed. Our sense of the situation is that the synagogue’s own board was horrified when it caught up with the story. No doubt it had to look within itself to decide to rebuff this bid to use its synagogue to honor someone who stood with Mr. Arafat during his war of terror against the Jews. But it was worth the risk. B’nai Jeshurun has set an example for houses of worship — of all faiths — where the troublemakers are looking for cover.