TEL AVIV — Shimri Segal said it hit him during a family dinner — he didn't have children of his own. And it hurt.

“It became very difficult to sit there and watch,” Segal, a human rights lawyer, said. “To see a house full of children, and knowing that for me — I don’t want to say it is impossible. It will be very difficult.”

As a same-sex couple in Israel, Segal and his partner, Avi Buskila, have precious few options. Adoption is often a tortuous process and expensive. Another path to parenthood was blocked on July 18 when Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu reneged on a pledge to support a clause in a bill that would have allowed same-sex male couples to have children with surrogates.

The Israeli leader's perceived duplicity helped kick off an election drive aimed at propelling more members of the LGBTQ community into public office here. The first test of this effort will be Oct. 30 when dozens of candidates are running in Israel’s 76 municipalities and 54 regional councils.

Chen Arieli, 42, the chair of Israel’s National LGBT Task Force, is aiming to get 35 of those candidates elected. On Monday, she announced she is herself running for the Tel Aviv municipal council.

Arieli said that she is fighting for basic equality and that victories at the ballot box will help elevate the community's agenda across the country.

“According to the rabbinical court, I am not married to my wife,” she said, referring to the body that governs basic Jewish family matters. “It shouldn’t be that I’m a second-class citizen.”

Chen Arieli is the chairwoman of Israel's National LGBT Task Force. David Copeland / NBC News

She added: "We are stopping asking favors. We’re not going wait for someone official to promote our cause."

Israel is undeniably ahead of other countries in the region and the world when it comes to LGBTQ rights and inclusion.

Same-sex cohabitation is legally recognized and couples are allowed to adopt. Every year, hundreds of thousands flock to celebrate gay pride in Tel Aviv, which has become a world mecca of LGBTQ culture.

And despite his apparent U-turn, Netanyahu soon boasted that Israel’s LGBTQ community is a prime example of the country’s unique tolerance.

“I am proud to be the prime minister of one of the world’s most open and free democracies,” Netanyahu told Barbara Goldberg, the vice president of the World Congress of GLBT Jews.

“Israel consistently upholds civil equality and civil rights of all its citizens regardless of race, religion, gender or sexual orientation,” he added in the July 31 letter obtained by the newspaper Haaretz and other news organizations.