I've just started recently looking at JS frameworks and tooling too.
React is a UI framework. You need something like Next.JS to handle things like routing. For the back-end JS, you need to look at something like Node.JS.
This is an interesting read:
How Does Angular Compare to React?[
^]
If you're going down the React path, you'll need this:
React Developer Tools[
^].
FWIW, jQuery is still current. There was a recent major release:
Official jQuery Blog | New Wave Javascript[
^].
IMHO, I would steer away from jQuery, as it is showing it's age, and use JS with Typescript and framework(s) of your choice.