I genuinely believe something about the destruction of the temple flipped some kind of collective switch in them as a people. Consider that prior to the temple:
>jewish rebellions were bloody and violent, relied on brute force, were quite frequent
>various different factions that all had their own unique interests, most of which were completely at odds and violently opposed to eachother (see pharrisees, the ones who would work as tax collectors, the qumran community, etc.)
>no particularly strong history of subversion
After the temple got sacked:
>subversion becomes one of, if not *the* main tool in the arsenal; violent rebellions die down
>much more unified, any differences are covered up in the face of outsiders
>still insular, but much more neurotic and paranoid about it

Maybe it is just a lack of recorded history as you suggest, who knows. But it does strike me as odd how much of these *apparent* changes happen around that specific event