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Blankfein was born in the Bronx borough of New York City, raised Jewish^[2] and reared in Brooklyn's Linden Houses, part of the New York City Housing Authority^{[citation needed]}. His father was a clerk with the U.S. Postal Service branch in the Manhattan borough of New York City^[3] and his mother, a receptionist. As a boy, he worked as a concession vendor atYankee Stadium. He received primary and secondary education in the public schools of the New York City Department of Education, and was the valedictorian at Thomas Jefferson High School in 1971. He attended Harvard, where he lived in Winthrop House, and earned his B.A. degree in 1975. In 1978, Blankfein received a J.D. degree from Harvard Law School.

Blankfein worked as a corporate tax lawyer for the law firm Donovan, Leisure, Newton & Irvine. In 1981, he joined Goldman's commodities trading arm, J. Aron & Co., as a precious metals salesman in its London office.

He is the Gala Chairman of the Rockefeller family's Asia Society in New York. He serves on the board of the Robin Hood Foundation, a charitable organization seeking to alleviate poverty in New York, as well as on the Board of Overseers of Weill Cornell Medical College.

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