It use case was to provide same API for cross-browser development in the age of browser wars and many different APIs between them. There is no more that problem.
It is not recommended to use custom syntax for DOM manipulation. Change your mind instead and start using HTML DOM and ECMAScript specifications.
This awesome website YouMightNotNeedjQuery is #1 resource to get started learning vanilla JS for jQuery developers.
Moreover from the good practice point of view, functions with the name $() doesn't tell anything and, thus, are very bad, in any case you can write own aliases for any jQuery function.
const $ = selector => document.querySelectorAll(selector);
You don't need a library for DOM manipulation, learn Vanilla JavaScript and DOM Level 3.
If you really want to use a library only because you think library is smarter then you and for sake of using a library only and not solving a problem, then Bliss.js by Lea Verou is exactly a ready set of those aliases with jQuery syntax.
However, instead of wasting time on looking for another from over 9000 DOM manipulation libraries around the GitHub, while you can do the same with 1 line of Vanilla JS, better find some libraries providing something new. For example, in BunnyJS I have DOM utils (You can join Gitter where I can provide some tricks and advices on writing modern Vanilla JS apps from scratch as well)
And No, j, BunnyJS is not an alias for jQuery, it is more like jQuery UI or Bootstrap with set of widgets which don't know about each other under the same brand - next generation jQuery for modern app development, simple and just works. It was designed to provide a controller logic for modern components, so you could just write HTML in your app without writing single line of JS and only when you need a bit customized behavior, then you just extend one small method. Instead of writing 90% same JS for validation, dropdowns, datepickers, searches/autocompletes, photo uploads and many other widgets for every project every time there is now BunnyJS and you write only what makes your business case different.