With a little help from this question, I was able to show font awesome icons in static SVG. But our app uses jQuery SVG, and it doesn't seem to be allowing SVG escape characters. Here's a demo showing both running side by side:
http://jsfiddle.net/scruffles/m6Z7Y/4/
<text x="30" y="30"></text>
Renders as a pencil, but
svg.text(g, 30, 30, '');
renders as 