AngularJS DOM selector

I've got a few custom directives that use jQuery for animation effects (angular's built-in ngShow/ngHide and the like are functional, but not pretty). I think I remember reading in the documentation somewhere that angular has its own DOM selector (something like angular.export() or angular.select()) that I should use instead of $(SELECTOR); however I can't find it now.

I'm doing something like this:

//view
<div scroll-to="element"> //`element` is set via ng-click
  …
</div>

//directive
link: function(scope, elm, attrs)
{

  scope.$watch(attrs.scrollTo, function scrollToAction(newValue,oldValue)
  {
    if ( newValue !== oldValue )
    {
      elm.animate({
        scrollTop:
          $('#'+newValue).offset().top //replace jquery selector with angular's
          - elm.offset().top
          + elm.scrollTop()
      });
    }
  });

}

I'm not really manipulating $('#'+newValue), just retrieving info about it, so I don't think I'm committing a crime against Angular.