The Mennonitishe Rundschau (1878 to 2007) was a newspaper that served the Mennonite community in Canada, the United States, and Russia.  For the first many decades it was a non-denominational Mennonite publication and carried information for all members of the Mennonite community, including the Mennonites who arrived in North America in the 1870s.  This paper was the major communication piece in these Mennonite communities for several decades, providing many local reports from these far flung communities and keeping family and friends close in spirit, if not in presence.

Funds from the Plett Foundation have helped the Centre for Mennonite Brethren Studies and the Mennonite Heritage Centre hire an indexer to read and index the themes, people, and places that are mentioned in the Rundschau from 1910 to 1919.  This decade included the Great War and revolution in Russia and Mennonite responses in North America; the increasing interaction between Mennonites and the North American host society; and the question of education in Canada, which would eventually lead to the emigration of Mennonites from Manitoba and Saskatchewan to Mexico and Paraguay in the 1920s.  Currently, this project is in Phase 5, indexing the years 1917-1918.