הרב אבא בר אחא בר סלא מכפרי

Abba bar Acha bar Sala of Kafri lived in Bavel in the second and third centuries and was the father of a family of Amoraim. A number of sources give his name with the rabbinic prefix, Rav Abba bar Acha, though there is no source that he held that title and no teachings are brought in his name. There are those who hold that Sala is not the name of a further generation but a second name for Acha: in some sources his father is called simply “Acha Sala,” without the generational “bar Sala,” and in others the two words ran together into a single name, Bersala, and from there Kersala. His town of Kafri has been identified with Achbara, on the western bank of the Chidekel between Samarra and Baghdad.

The Bavli brings that he was descended from Shim’a, the brother of David HaMelech, and it counts his five well-known children: Rabbi Chiya the Great; Aibu, the father of Rav, who is himself mentioned at times in the Gemara; Chana, the father or grandfather of Rabbah bar bar Chana; Shila — in the version of Rav Hai Gaon, Shilat, the mother of Rav Shmuel bar Shilat; and Marta. He had two wives whose names are not known, one the mother of Rabbi Chiya and the other the mother of Aibu. The mother of Rabbi Chiya had a daughter from an earlier marriage, called in some of the explanations Ima; Aibu married her, and she gave birth to the amora Rav.