title: Is there a jQuery equivalent of MooTools' Element() constructor?
body: <p>I am going to be starting a javascript reporting engine for my website, and have started some prototyping using MooTools.  I really like being able to do things like this:</p>
  
  <pre><code>function showLeagues(leagues) {
      var leagueList = $("leagues");
      leagueList.empty();
      for(var i = 0; i&lt;leagues.length; ++i) {
          var listItem = getLeagueListElement(leagues[i]);
          leagueList.adopt(listItem);
      }
  }
  
  function getLeagueListElement(league) {
      var listItem = new Element('li');
      var newElement = new Element('a', {
          'html': league.name,
          'href': '?league='+league.key,
          'events': {
                  'click': function() { showLeague(league); return false; }
          }
      });
      listItem.adopt(newElement);
      return listItem;
  }
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>From what I've seen, jQuery's "adopt" type methods only take html strings or DOM Elements.  Is there any jQuery equivalent to MooTools' <a href="http://mootools.net/docs/Element/Element#Element:constructor" rel="nofollow noreferrer">Element</a>?
  <hr/>
  EDIT: The big thing I'm looking for here is the programmatic attachment of my click event to the link.</p>