Kyrie Irving and Kanye West didn't just say hurtful things. They told ugly lies about Jews.

Hey, did you hear the news about the Jews? We financed the transatlantic slave trade. We secretly worship Satan. Oh, and I almost forgot: We also control the mass media.

I say “we” because I’m Jewish. So you might guess that I was hurt by Brooklyn Nets basketball star Kyrie Irving, who tweeted support for a 2018 film – with the eye-catching title "Hebrews to Negroes" – that made all of these claims.

But you’d be wrong. Nor have I been harmed by Ye, the rapper formerly known as Kanye West, another famous purveyor of antisemitic nonsense.

To say that these click-bait buffoons hurt me gives them more credit – and, I fear, more credence – than they deserve.

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The Nets suspended Irving for at least five games without pay on Thursday, citing his refusal to apologize for "the harm and danger of his words and actions." Irving relented a few hours later on Instagram, informing Jews who were “hurt” by his previous post that he was “deeply sorry to have caused you pain.”

Hold on to truth in the face of lies

But the real problem with the words used by Irving and West isn't that they're hurtful, harmful or painful. The problem is that they're false.

And the distinction matters, because injury is by definition subjective. All of us feel certain things based on our individual inclinations, experiences and identities. So almost anything can hurt you, depending upon who you are.

History is different. It’s grounded in evidence, not in emotion. It speaks to what happened, as best we can determine it.

So it’s also the best way to reply to haters like Irving and West. Simply calling their claims hurtful doesn’t refute them, because true statements can hurt as much as false ones can.

Indeed, the threat of hurt can cause us to suppress the truth. Look no further than the recent spate of laws passed by GOP-led state legislatures, outlawing instruction that might cause children to feel badly because of their race. Translated: Don’t teach about the history of racism in America, because white kids might be hurt.

Or consider the wave of book bans that are suffusing through school boards, all reflecting a similar premise. In Texas, most notoriously, a Republican state legislator demanded an investigation of 850 books that “might make students feel discomfort, guilt, anguish, or any other form of psychological distress.”

Race in America: Pam's experience at my 1960s white school is the history we need to teach. Not ignore.

Once you make feelings your hammer, in short, almost anything can look like a nail. Today, it’s Irving or West causing hurt; tomorrow, it might be Toni Morrison’s "Beloved" or Art Spiegelman’s "Maus," which have both been targeted by school censors for the same reason.

Shine light on ignorance

Of course I’m not equating these brilliant books with the ignorant blather of Kyrie Irving and Kanye West. I’m suggesting that we spotlight the ignorance of Irving and West, instead of harping on whatever harm they might have caused.

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There is no evidence – none – that Jews financed the slave trade. Of course there were Jews who bought, owned and sold human beings. But Jews were banished from the largest slaveholding empires, Portugal and Spain, so they never played more than a marginal role in the trade.

Similarly, individual Jews have risen to positions of power in modern mass media. But the idea that Jews secretly “control” the media dates to "The Protocols of the Elders of Zion," an early 20th century Russian propaganda tract. Predictably, the book on which "Hebrews to Negroes" is based quotes, yes, "The Protocols."

It’s all a lie. The alleged conspiracists, the Elders of Zion, did not exist. And as early as 1921, British journalists showed that the Protocols had been largely plagiarized from a French political satire that – ironically – never mentioned Jews.

That didn’t stop auto magnate Henry Ford from publishing articles based on the Protocols, earning praise from (among others) Adolf Hitler.

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It won’t stop with Irving or West, either. There will be other lies, and then more. There always are. The only thing the rest of us can do is to call them out. And that will require facts, not feelings.

Let me be clear: Many people – and not just Jews – feel hurt by Irving and West. That’s their right, and I would never question it.

But I think it’s the wrong way to counter the lies that are spread against Jews and every other minority, including African Americans. Saying that these falsehoods are hurtful does nothing to dispel them. Only truth can do that.

Jonathan Zimmerman teaches education and history at the University of Pennsylvania. He is the author of "Whose America? Culture Wars in the Public Schools," which was published in a revised 20th anniversary edition this fall by the University of Chicago Press.

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This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Kyrie Irving, Kanye West's antisemitic lies must be fought with truth