Early Life and Education
Blumenthal was born in Brooklyn, New York, the son of Jane M. (née Rosenstock) and Martin Blumenthal, who was the president of a commodities trading firm. His mother was born in Omaha, Nebraska, to a Jewish family that originated in Prussia, and his father was a Jewish immigrant from Frankfurt, Germany. Blumenthal graduated from Harvard College with an A.B. magna cum laude and was a member of Phi Beta Kappa. As an undergraduate, he was editorial chairman of The Harvard Crimson. Blumenthal was a summer intern reporter for The Washington Post in the London Bureau. Blumenthal was also selected for a Fiske Fellowship that allowed him to study at Cambridge University, Cambridge England for one year after graduation from Harvard College.
He received his J.D. from Yale Law School, where he was editor-in-chief of the Yale Law Journal. While at Yale, he was classmates with future President Bill Clinton and future Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton. One of his co-editors on the Yale Law Journal was future United States Secretary of Labor Robert Reich. His brother, David Blumenthal, is a recognized health policy expert and is Chairman of the Commonwealth Fund Commission on a High Performance Health System.
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