JSFiddle - React, Tailwind, and code Playground

HTML

<ul>
    <li>1</li>
  <li data-sel='foo'></li>
  <li>2</li>
  <li data-sel='foo'></li>
  <li class='selected'></li>
  <li data-sel='foo'></li>
 </ul>

JavaScript

$(function(){
    
    var element = $('.selected').prevAll('li').not('[data-sel="foo"]').first();
           
    alert($(element).text());
});