As of iOS 8 that's no longer the case. JSC JIT compilation can be used in native apps. (It's also used by WKWebView.)

http://trac.webkit.org/wiki/JavaScriptCore

"JavaScriptCore is an optimizing virtual machine. JavaScriptCore consists of the following building blocks: lexer, parser, start-up interpreter (LLInt), baseline JIT, a low-latency optimizing JIT (DFG), and a high-throughput optimizing JIT (FTL)."

This has been false for years.

I haven't used React Native, but I've done quite a bit with native bridging with JavaScriptCore and v8. If your performance bottlenecks are crossing the Javascript-to-native boundary, JIT can't help you. And crossing the bridge boundary isn't the cheapest operation.