Only if you are using the latest hipster JS framework. I write only vanilla JS (infrequently) and things have been getting easier and easier as browsers (and JS) advance.
Same approach here.
Server side rendering with Java and .NET web stacks, with vanila JS.
jQuery seems to be an underrated gem. It's just as good as 10 years ago.
It's not that it is underrated, the paradigm has moved past manually grabbing bits of the DOM and updating them. Today, it is all about two way databinding. You have a variable that lives in your controller and when he is updated so is the DOM, automatically. I'm glad jQuery has been put to pasture because you end up writing way less code which is way more maintainable.