jQuery is a relatively small dependency and it's still more expressive than vanilla JS so I wouldn't hesitate to use it if it felt appropriate.

One could also reach for something like Preact if some components are too complicated for manual imperative updates. You can use it without a build step and only for some parts of your pages. For compatibility you can ship a server-rendered component that you then throw away if the client has JS enabled (although that would require you to implement it twice).